


Lost Boys

by CannibalKats



Series: Lost Boys [1]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Non-binary MC, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-10-01 16:01:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 63,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10193531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CannibalKats/pseuds/CannibalKats
Summary: updates ThursdaysNoelle Lee had practically been Jumin Han's Step-Sibling, even dated his best friend for a while, now they/she worked in advertising at C&R and did theater in her/their spare time.  Noelle finds their-self in a strangers apartment wondering what her brother's charity group is up to and what the hell any of this has to do with her.[This is a retelling of mystic messenger with a custom NB MC who uses she/they pronouns, it combines things from almost all the routes and will also cover the Secret Ends]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Day One: Part One

There was nothing else to do.  On a normal Thursday she’d already be home in jogging pants a dog on her feet and a sketchbook in front of her but the cute flutist had asked her to go for coffee at rehearsal last night and she couldn’t think of a reason to say no.  So she grabs the bag from the back of her car and decides to walk to the rehearsal space.  There’s an audition for a Shakespeare showcase in a few days and she could use an extra day.  Maybe she’d finally settle on someone to read with her.

“Is it the 18th already?” She laughs answering her phone.

“Where are you?” Jumin asks ignoring her. 

“I had a date, it was terrible, I should have stayed home and drew your girlfriend.”

“I am not dating my cat, No.”

“Sorry you _wife_ ,” she laughs.

“Noelle,” Jumin starts to scold her but her laugh is infectious and he gives up. “I thought you didn’t do that anymore.”

“Do what?  Go on bad dates?  I wish.”

“Dating, I thought you’d said you were done with that.”

“Jumin you can’t hold me accountable for things I said when I was seventeen,” she laughs. 

“Why make a declaration like that arbitrarily?”

“It wasn’t arbitrary eight years ago.”  She walks in silence for a moment.  She knows he has little else to say at this point, he had just seen her at work earlier in the week to discuss another one of his cat businesses.  Poor Miss. Kang looked ready to break him in half the entire time.  She braces herself for his final enquiry.

“Have you spoken with Jihyun?”

“You really are never going to drop that are you?”

He doesn’t answer and she can practically hear his brow furrow, she can imagine him sitting foreword and crossing his arms across his chest.

“Do you pester Jihyun about calling me or do you save your nagging for family?”

“Could you be an adult for one minute Noelle.”

“Could you stop pretending you’re my big brother for like 3 minutes, Jumin.”

“ _Noelle_.”

“Fine I’m petty, he didn’t call me, not once, not ever, why should I call him now?”

“That’s stupid.”

“ _I know_.”

“I think you could help him, No.”

“That’s cool, I’m at work, I have to go.”

“I hate it when you call that place work.” He growls.  “You barely get paid there.”

“Mr. Han is displeased with me, I’m definitely at work,” she laughs and stumbles up the stairs.  “Shit!”

Someone catches her.  Hands on her elbows pull her back from where she’d tumbled forward and she finds herself resting against someone very tall, taller than her at least and that was saying something.  Smiling red eyes look down at her and she forgets how to move for a moment.

“Noelle, what happened?” Jumin is asking her, something almost like concern in his voice. “Are you alright?”

“I’m ok,” she says, a little nervously righting herself and nodding awkwardly at the tall man who’d caught her.  “Just tripped over my feet, it’s alright though, a giant caught me.”

“Why are you walking,” Jumin asks, but the tall man is laughing and she feels like she should know his name.  She doesn’t hear anything else Jumin says to her, the man’s smiling at her he touches her elbow and tilts his head like a puppy.

She blushes and realizes he’s trying not to interrupt her conversation. “I’m sorry, thank you,” she almost giggles like a teenager.

“You’re alright?” He asks.  “I was worried I’d startled you—”

“When you saved my life? Oh no,” she shakes her head.  Jumin is still talking at her and she can’t focus, she can’t believe she can’t remember this man’s name.  “I tripped over my own feet, can’t walk and talk you know?”

He laughs.  “I’ll see you in there then.”

He’s just going through the door when it comes to her “Zen!” she almost shouts.

“What about him?” Jumin asks irritated in her ear.

Zen turns around and waves to her before disappearing through the door.

“That’s who caught me,” she says.

Jumin groans.  “God, don’t tell me you _work_ with _him_.”

“Are you jealous,” she laughs.

“Ugh.”

“I’ve been a chorus member in one or two of his shows, keeps my resume from stagnating but no, we don’t work together.  He freelances through the same company as me.”

“Please tell me you’re not in love with him too,” Jumin groans.

She stops outside the door. “What?  That’s stupid, I don’t even know him.”

“Good.” Jumin says.  “I have nothing else to contribute to this.  You should do whatever you have to do and go home, didn’t you take overtime home tonight?”

“You mean the designs for the catfood line that you haven’t even pitched to Pops yet.”

“Please stop calling my father Pops.”

“Bye Jumin.”

It’s loud inside, the band appears to be playing something, and there sounds like seven different singers singing totally different songs.  Thursdays were so chaotic, so many of the musicians rehearsing for some one-off Friday night gig.

 _Fucking Musicians_ , she thinks slipping off her coat.  She hangs it up and tucks her shoes on the shelf above it. She stops in the doorway to the big open studio and leans on the frame while she pulls her slippers on.  Two hands shoot up in the back of the room, she waves back and smiles.

“Look who’s here,” Mila smiles at her as she approaches.  “Nervous?”

“Not even a little,” she smiles. 

“Didn’t you have plans tonight?” Ki-jung asks.

“Yeah, please remind me never to say yes to a flutist ever again.”

“That bad?” Mila snickers.

“You can’t imagine how many times he compared playing the flute to cunnalingus.”

“What?” Ki-jung blushes.  “Who does that?”

“People who play the flute apparently,” Mila laughs.

“Yeah well I might have suggested it was kind of phallic for that and left.”

The three of them cackle.  “So who are you going to read for next week?” Ki-jung asks when they’ve regained control.

“I was thinking Ophelia, I’m not 100% on it.”

“Do you even rehearse for Hamlet anymore?” Mila laughs.  “Oh I don’t know who’ll I read for, I know everyone’s lines, give me and Act and a line Mr. Director, I’m sure I’ll recite it perfectly.”  Mila mimic’s Noelle’s slight accent, lowering her voice a few octaves.

“You should go out for the new musical everyone is talking about too,” Ki-jung suggests.

“Nope,” Noelle turns mid-grab for Mila and shakes her head.

“No doesn’t like to sing in front of people,” Mila laughs.

“You sing in front of us all the time,” he frowns.

“You’re not people,” Noelle chuckles, “you’re actors.”

“Why don’t you though?”

She looks away from her friends.  “Reminds me of my Dad,” she shrugs.

“And you miss him?”” Ki-jung smiles up at her.

Noelle curls her lip and snarls. “Not even a little. He used to make me sing for people he was trying to talk into marrying me. Ugh.”

“Rich people problems,” Mila snorts.

“Don’t remind me,” Noelle frowns.  “Too bad I wasn’t old enough to appreciate it.”

Mila laughs.  “At least when you’re famous you’ll be able to balance a stock portfolio and still relate to the average Joe.”

Noelle starts to stretch.  She laughs with her friends, they run lines, joke about her date, and she convinces Ki-Jung to practice fencing with her.  They’re breathing heavy when the smell of food hits them, half the people in the space have cleared out or hit the seats to eat.  She follows her friends to the old piano off stage, practically a prop at this point, it’s barely in tune. 

Mila plunks out a few bars from that new musical everyone had been talking about.  Noelle didn’t like to admit she’d been listening to the soundtrack, anytime she mentioned enjoying musicals someone would get onto her about how if she practiced she could do them too.  Mila elbows her in the ribs and she joins in.

 _Oh well_ , she thinks, _everyone here is sick of trying_.  No one is paying attention to them anyway.  Most of the performers have headphones in while they eat, running lines and melodies to themselves around sandwiches and lemon water. 

Min-ju slides up to where they sit and eggs her on, she snaps her fingers and hums.  Noelle blushes but she obliges her friends, the four of them now singing together, if she doesn’t get a part in this showcase she was going to have to go out for another chorus part just to keep her resume up to date, might as well indulge.

The four of them laugh as the song ends, and Min-ju drapes herself across Noelle’s lap.  “Hey,” she inclines her head stage left and raises her eyebrows as her ponytail swings.  “What’s with the local celebrity making googly eyes at you?”

“What?” Noelle frowns and follows her head tilt.  Zen is standing off stage watching them over his shoulder, or watching her.  “That’s weird.”

 


	2. Day One: 2

He hadn’t had a part in a while.  It had been harder to find sponsors since the RFA had stopped holding parties; even the climbing numbers in his fan club didn’t comfort him at this point.  These days it was mostly people who thought he was pretty and he was getting sick of just being the pretty guy.

He’s walking from the train station, looking at his feet when he thinks he hears someone say _Jumin_ , he glances around.  That was all he needed tonight, to run into that Jerk when he already felt shitty.  Still, where there was Jumin Han there were cameras and it couldn’t hurt to be seen. 

There’s a bit of foot traffic on the sidewalk but no trust fund jerk anywhere in sight, the only thing that stands out to him is someone ahead of him, looks like a woman judging by the amount of curly red hair piled on top of their head and the way their coat cinches at the waist. 

He wonders, it’s been so long since he approached someone, maybe he should introduce himself, invite them for a drink, skip rehearsal tonight.  He picks up his pace but then that voice at the back of his head reminds him _women don’t normally like being hit on in the dark on a sidewalk, don’t be that guy Zen_.  He hates to admit it, but when they turn towards the same building as him his chest tightens a little.

But then they reach towards the railing on the stairs into the building and miss, he runs up behind them and grabs them by the arms pulling them backwards into him.  Big green eyes stare up at him and blink a few times.  _Shit, she’s really cute_.  He stands her upright and makes sure she’s steady before he lets go.

“I’m okay,” she says quietly to whoever she’s talking to on the phone.  She doesn’t take her eyes off him, frowning the whole time.

He waits, he wants to talk to her.  She looks familiar, he’d probably seen her at rehearsals 100 times, _this is why you don’t have friends Zen_ , he chides himself and almost turns to go into the building.

“A giant caught me,” she smiles at him but it’s obvious she’s listening to someone on the other end of the line.

He can’t make himself turn and go into the building.  _You’re just concerned,_ he tells himself, but her eyes are still glued to his face and she’s frowning again.  The last time he’d helped someone falling they’d cried.  He’d worried that she’d hurt herself but she had just been a really big fan, a fan of his face not his talent.  _You’re just a pretty face Zen_ , he scolds himself.

She’s stopped talking though so he reaches out and touches her arm where he’d grabbed her and starts to ask if she’d ok but she interrupts him.

 “I’m sorry, thank you,” she blushes and stifles a nervous laugh.

“You’re alright?” He asks.  “I was worried I’d startled you—”

“When you saved my life? Oh no,” she shakes her head. She looks embarrassed “I tripped over my own feet, can’t walk and talk you know?”

He laughs.  “I’ll see you in there then.”

She smiles, and goes back to her phone call, never taking her bright green eyes off of him.  He’s almost through the doors when he hears her call out his name.  He turns and waves but she blushes and looks away.  _She’s really cute_ , he thinks.

He’s barely gotten his coat and shoes off when the Director is pulling him into the office.  “Hyun I just got a call, there’s a producer coming by, says he’s scouting for a casting director didn’t say for what, didn’t mention any names.  I’m not telling anyone else.”

“That’s a little unusual.”

The director shrugs.  “Just make sure you have something prepared.”

It’s loud in here on Thursdays and he loves it.  The musicians have so much energy when they have their Friday night gigs.  He almost misses when that used to be him, just to be seen, taking every little job he could find that would land him on a stage.  Not that much had changed; he could just be marginally pickier these days.  Regardless if the director thought someone would be scouting he knew exactly where to be to stand out, and not be overwhelmed by the cacophony of the rest of the space.

Plus from his spot on the risers at the back of the stage he can see the girl with the red hair.  She sits with one of the musical group’s regulars and a guy he doesn’t recognize.  He scans his phone for something to rehearse, lines, music, should he dance?  Couldn’t the director give him more to go on?

She’s stretching, she’s so tall, taller than most of the people around her, almost as tall as he is.  When she finishes he watches her straighten her back and the way her brow furrows while she delivers lines.  He can’t hear what she’s saying over the static noise of the room but she’s performing with her entire body, not simply running lines like most of the people around her. 

It looks like she’s known whatever she’s rehearsing for her whole life, like she’s lived it. The way her face falls, her posture changes subtly, the slight way her lips part in response to her scene partner’s delivery.  He wants to move closer and listen to what they’re saying, but then her face contorts and she shoves the man in front of her and they dissolve into laughter.

She straightens her back and makes a few quick movements forwards and the man with her flinches and then nods.  She doesn’t even look at him when she passes on her way to the prop table.  He watches her feel out a few of the foils.  He’s a little jealous when he realizes she actually knows what she’s doing; she holds one out and spins it around her hand.

“Show off!” The girl sitting with them laughs.

“You too could obtain useless skill number 217 with a theatre degree for the low low cost of crippling student debt.” She laughs turning back.

 _Head in the game Zen_.  He moves off the stage, there’s no one important here right now, it can’t hurt to just be somewhere he can’t see her right now, somewhere he can focus.  It works mostly and he manages to work on something besides a pending infatuation.

The noise of the rehearsal space calms and he checks his phone, late enough most people have probably taken a break to eat.  He glances off the stage and confirms his suspicion.  Most of the performers are gone now; their things still piled in the seating, or hung at the back, a few scattered groups eating box-meals over scripts or in small groups.

The old off key prop piano is playing and two girls are sitting at it one of them singing, the tall red head is sitting with her back to him, and the voice that joins the first has to be hers.  He pulls the ear bud out of one ear so he can hear her better.  He watches her turn, still sitting cross legged on the bench, and pick up the harmony on the keyboard.  She doesn’t seem to notice that her friend has stopped singing.  She nods her head in time and leans on the smaller woman as the song ends.

Then the snapping starts.  Zen recognizes Min-ju as she advances on the group at the piano; the 3 of them join in.  The red head is blushing but she sings along with her friends, smiling and laughing when they stumble on a few of the words.  She mimics Min-ju’s liquid arm movements, keeping still from the waist down and the small woman with the high ponytail throws herself in the redheads lap as the song ends.

 _Shit_ , he thinks as Min-ju makes eye contact with him.  It doesn’t take much to look busy, the director is advancing on him and he almost runs to meet the older man.

“They want to see No,” the director practically spits.

“Who?” Zen frowns.

“No Kira,” the director shrugs, as if that explains everything.

“Who’s that?”

“I know right, they want her to sing, I told him she doesn’t sing solos, she’s not even one of mine, her agent isn’t even here tonight.”

He doesn’t want to seem arrogant but, “I have no idea who you’re talking about, what do you want me to do about it.”

The director sighs and grabs him by the arm.  “Just come with me.”

At the back of the seating the director jabs a finger towards a man in a nice jacket with strange green eyes. 

“You didn’t even speak to them,” the man says not looking at him.

The director snorts.  “I’m sorry Kira doesn’t sing, I don’t want to bother them, this is an unusual day for them to come to rehearsal.”

“Lucky me,” the man says dryly.  He eyes Zen up and down.  “What am I supposed to do with _this_?”

Zen blushes, angry.

“I don’t represent No Kira, but I have Zen here—”

“I am here to listen to No Kira sing.”  The man leans forward and rests his chin on his hands crossed over the back of the chair in front of him.

The director snorts and turns to the stage.  “No, on stage now please.” He starts an almost March down the aisle.

Zen watches the little group at the piano scramble all looking towards the red head as they exit the stage.  The red head sits very still staring stage left and stands slowly.  She walks mechanically to center stage and takes a knee leaning forward to meet the director’s eye line as best she can.  Zen is still standing at the back of the room.

He can see her pale at whatever the director says, shake her head.  He grabs her hand and she yanks it away.  She straightens nervously and squints towards the back of the room.

“Is there something specific you’d like me to sing from?”  She asks through gritted teeth.

The man doesn’t stand or sit up, he shrugs.  “Whatever.”

No clears her throat. She stands stiff at attention, her shoulders back and she looks like she’s sweating.  She makes it through one shaky verse of something Zen isn’t familiar with and shakes her head and then just stands there.

“Zen, is it?” The man in the seat says shifting only his eyes to Zen.

“Yes,” Zen says curtly.

“Go fix that mess.”

 _Are you fucking kidding me_ , Zen wants to say.  No was obviously uncomfortable, she doesn’t perform in musicals the director had told him.  The man snaps his fingers and Zen’s shoulders tense but he does what he’s told.


	3. Day One: 3

Everything is swimming in front of her.  Why is she standing here center stage, who wants her to sing? 

“Tell him no,” she’d told the director.

“I did, he won’t take no for an answer, just get it over with.”

And now her vision is blurring and she can’t move her feet, can’t remember the words to literally anything she’s ever sung.  Wasn’t she just singing something with Min-ju?

“Hey, No Kira?” Someone touches her elbow.  “Hey.” Red eyes smiling at her.

 _Focus No._ She tells herself.  But she can’t make herself move.

A guitar is playing somewhere and the red eyes are still talking.  “Hey this guys a real asshole ok, so do you think we can get through this together, do you think if it’s just you and me, like you were just a bit ago with your friends.”

“I don’t sing alone,” she manages to get out.  “I don’t sing.”

“No, that’s ok.  You’re not singing alone, everyone else is rehearsing now, you and me are just going to sing a duet for fun ok?”

She shrugs and the rest of him comes into focus and he nods to someone behind her.

“ _Maybe I'm just crazy, Maybe I'm a fool, Maybe I don't know how to love but, Maybe I do,_ ” he starts

She misses her time but manages to get in “ _Maybe you know more than me but, This much is true, This little heart and brain of mine say, We're through with you_.”

She manages not to fumble the song too much, she curses him in the back of her mind; that he can just stand there and smile at her like that while she’s beet red and sweating.  That he can look so calm while she feels like her heart could explode out her chest.  How can he look so calm when she feels like John Hurt in Alien?

When they finish she can hear Mila, Ki-jung and Min-ju all applaud, even Zen standing in front of her claps. But she can’t she shakes her head and walks off the stage.  This was not the day for this.  Not after that date, not after Jumin bringing up Jihyun _again_ , and now Zen was catching her again.  No she had to leave.  She doesn’t want whatever role this asshole is making her audition for, doesn’t care if she offends him.  She doesn’t need the money, C&R pays her perfectly fine.

People are calling to her and she risks a glance behind her, Zen is still standing on the stage, he looks shocked.  Maybe she’ll come early tomorrow so she can apologise to him.  She pulls her coat on as the director catches up to her; she just grabs her shoes and makes to leave in her slippers.

“No where are you going?” He calls after her.

“I don’t audition for musical leads, sorry, I shouldn’t have wasted your time.”

“Aren’t you going to at least put your shoes on?”

“Nope.”

She practically runs to her car.  It’s only a block but she’s panting by the time she gets there, she rests her head against the coolness of the roof and catches her breath, her phone chirps an email notification in her pocket.

 _New recommended App, Chat with cute boys_.

“Well,” she says out loud turning on the radio, “it’s not like my day can get worse.”


	4. Day Two: 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I headcanon part of the reason Jumin is so controlled with his emotions is that he had issues with aggression when he was a teenager. I kind of picture him as the quiet kid who everyone was a little afraid of.

Jumin had dreamt of Noelle last night. 

“Strange,” he frowns at Elizabeth III and tightens his tie.

“Brrmp,” she chirps and stretches out on his bed.

 _Still_ he considers, sitting in the back of his car stuck in morning traffic, as strange as it is for him to recall a dream in the morning he could certainly understand the reason behind it.  The woman in the messenger last night; _Elle_ , did she think that would fool him, or the uncharacteristically soft photo.  Certainly he had his doubts, but with how quickly V had ruled that she join the RFA, at least Seven claimed that V had ruled, those doubts were easily dismissed.

_“Where are you going?” he asks, catching up to the sharp left Jihyun had made._

_“You told your Dad you’d make sure—”_

_“I know what I said, I didn’t see her come out she probably left from the wrong door again._

_“We should check, you said she keeps getting lost.” Jihyun smiles and brushes his long hair out of his eyes._

_“Why are you so interested?”_

_“Come on,” the taller boy laughs, “I haven’t even gotten to meet her yet.”_

_Jumin rolls his eyes._

_“What’s she like?” His best friend’s bright inquisitive eyes bore into him as he walks backwards into the school_

_Jumin shrugs.  “She doesn’t talk to me.  I think she’s afraid of me.”_

_“Maybe she’s heard the rumors,” he laughs turning to watch where he’s going._

_“Even before classes resumed she was timid, I tried to help her with her homework last night and she looked like she was going to cry.”_

_They make their way to the wing where Jumin knows her locker is and Jihyun turns excited.  “Looks like her shoes are still here, that’s her name right? Noelle Lee?”_

_Jumin groans and they set off in search of her. “This is irritating.”_

_“This is being a brother,” Jihyun laughs.  “Sister’s are irritating.”_

_“God,” Jumin starts but they hear something at the end of the hall where the locker block for another year is.  A sort of squeak and a banging sound.  The two boys break into a jog, Jihyun smiling excitedly.  Everything was an adventure with him, nothing mundane._

_Around the corner three older boys have someone cornered, the largest of them looms over a wide eyed girl who looks like she’s trying to sink into the floor, he has her long red braid in his hand swinging it absently like a rope.  Jihyun’s shoes squeak as he skids to a stop and one of the boys turns._

_He see’s Jumin, who has broken into a run and backs away hands out in supplication.  Jihyun’s eyes narrow and the boy turns and runs into the opposite hall as he grabs the second twisting his arm behind his back and whispering “Shhh” into his ear._

_“—Come on sweetheart,” the looming boy coos, “I bet you’re just like your Mom, I’m just trying to be nice to you, come on.  You don’t want to make me—”_

_There’s a crash as Jumin plows into the guy knocking him off kilter into the locker bank._

_Noelle scurries out of the way and Jihyun lets go of the hooligan he’s holding and reaches out for Noelle’s hand.  She tenses but when he backs off she grabs onto his arm for dear life._

_“Dude what the fu—” the big guy doesn’t get another word out before Jumin grabs him by the back of the neck and slams him face first into a locker three times in quick succession.  Noelle lets out a small gasp but there’s a shadow of a smile on her face._

_“Jumin! I think you broke his jaw,” Jihyun calls out._

_Noelle had been smiling when he turned around.  He’d let the thug go then and the big boy had blubbered as he ran.  Jumin picked up Noelle’s bag and handed it to her._

_“You’re locker is back here,” he said coolly.  “Come find us tomorrow after school so this doesn’t happen again.”_

Why was he remembering these things?  Noelle had changed after that, slowly but changed none the less, she had stopped leaving rooms when he entered them and she spoke to him.  He’d hated having to constantly insist she speak up for herself but she’d come around quickly.  V had been softer, more patient with her.  Hard to imagine the Noelle he knew now had once been such a timid girl.  Though certainly they had all changed with time.

Assistant Kang is already sitting at her desk when he finally makes it into the building.  She stands and stares at him expectantly.

“Well spit it out,” he growls.

“Good morning to you too, Mr. Han, I’m fine thank you for asking.”

“I’m sorry, did you require small talk before you ask me whatever it is you want to ask me?  I was unaware.”

She rolls her eyes.  “I was just, _it’s none of my business_ , but you usually speak to Miss. Lee midmonth, did she happen to say, it’s just I was wondering if everything was ok, she did not come home last night and I know she had an unpleasant date after work.”

 _They’re friends_?  Of course he had insisted Noelle live in the same building as his Assistant, and asked Miss. Kang to keep an eye on her, he supposed they would at least be acquaintances.  Was Assistant Kang concerned about her or did she also suspect the woman from the Messenger was Noelle.

Jumin considers.  “I did speak with her; she was falling down the stairs when I hung up.”

“She what?  Mr. Han are you—”

“Don’t fret Ms. Kang, it seems as though she was the woman Zen was speaking about last night.”

“Zen?”

“It appears that they rehearse together.  Freezing up while singing in public does seem like something Noelle would do, I hadn’t thought about that last night considering the rest of the evening.”

“Yes,” she admits, forgetting what she was talking about.  “That was quite strange; perhaps Luciel has lost his edge.”

“Hmm,” Jumin frowns.

“What is it, Mr. Han,” she asks, grabbing a pile of documents off her desk and following him into his office.

“Could you please try to get V on the line for me?”

She sets the pile down neatly on his desk and ignores his sigh.  “Of course, Mr. Han.”


	5. Day Two: 2

It was clear to her by the time she tried to go to bed in the early hours of the morning that no one had ever really lived in this apartment.  A layer of dust covered almost everything and some of the dishes and things in the cupboard were still in boxes.  None of the appliances were plugged in and when she lay down on the bed she could hear the sound of the plastic still covering the mattress under the sheets.

 _Weird_ , she thinks, _like someone wanted the illusion of living here?_   She pulls everything off the bed, even the pillows in their cases are still in the plastic.  _This is ridiculous_.  Eventually the bed is made and she’s thankful she had her rehearsal bag with her, at least the loose shirt she wears to learn rehearse makes a comfortable sleep shirt.

4am rolls around and she just wants to go home.  _It can’t hurt, I’ll come back with Darryl and some groceries tomorrow after work, it’ll be fine_. _Don’t know why I’m still here anyway._   She pulls her pants on unlocks the bolt on the door, yawns and turns the handle.

Nothing happens.

She frowns, the bolt is still locked, she could have sworn she turned it.  “I guess I’m still half asleep,” she frowns and turns the lock again.

 _Wrrr-Click_!

It snaps back into place as she’s turning the knob. “What the—”

She turns the bolt again and waits. 

Nothing happens so she reaches for the handle and, _wrr-click!_ The bolt turns again and her phone vibrates and chimes out a notification she doesn’t recognize.  It’s a text through the RFA messenger.

She opens the text from 707, a picture of the Microsoft paperclip smiles nostalgically back at her. _I see that you’re having a problem, can Clippy help you?_ She glares at the message.  What was even going on here.  She’d teased Jumin about starting a club too late in life but this whole thing seemed so weird.

She glances around, 707 could definitely see her that was clearly the message he was trying to send her in his weird way.  Her eyes narrow on a camera at the top of the hall tree by the door as her phone rings.  She watches the black lens as she answers and slowly flips it off.

“Well that’s rude,” 707 chirps at her.  “Not a morning person I guess.”

“What’s the deal, why can’t I leave?”

“What, no banter, I’m disappointed.”

She stares at the lens.  “I mean I get the idea, I just have things I should deal with and I need something clean to wear to work in the morning.”

“There’s a washer in the hall closet,” he says casually.

“You’ve been here?”

“Of course,” he laughs and she can hear him crunching on something.  “Who do you think installed the cameras.”

“So there’s more than one.”

Laughter.

“Can I at least go get my dog?”

“Don’t worry El-Doggo is currently hanging out with your neighbor, I’ve got you covered Boo.”

“What?”

More laughter, and then a sudden stop. “Listen Elle, or Noelle, or No Kira, wow you’ve got almost as many identities as me you know?  Listen, you’ve got to come back here after work—”

“I’ve got other responsibilities too.”

“As long as you’re in the apartment in the evenings ok?  That’s orders from the top.”

“From V, you mean?”

“Yep, yep, yep!” He chuckles.  “Not that I don’t trust you but I can keep an eye on you here.”

“If you _trust_ me then why do you need to watch me?”

“Look,” he’s serious again, “there’s a computer there that already has everything you need to prepare for the party when V is ready for you to do that, and it’s not you that worries me, whoever sent you though,” there’s a long pause and Noelle feels her chest tighten.  “Listen I don’t want you to get hurt, this guy, or girl, or _person_ , they’re good enough to get through my security so you’re safer where I can watch you.”

“Fine.”

“Perfect,” there’s the chipper voice again, the creak of an old chair and a crash.  “And you know you can’t tell Jumin, Zen, or Jaehee that you’re Elle?  I didn’t have to tell you that, not someone smart like you?”

“I mean,” she stutters.  She _hadn’t_ realized that.  “You don’t think Jumin’s figured it out already?  I’m pretty sure he knows exactly who I am.”

Snickering on the other end.  “Nah, your brother, _or whatever_ , he’s always like that.  Not saying he doesn’t have an idea but you can’t let him know he’s right.”

She finger guns the camera.  “Oh well, I guess I can deal with that.”

“And Zen, you can’t tell him you’re Elle.” He says very seriously.

“Yeah ok,” she raises an eyebrow at the camera.

“Guess earlier chats from the day didn’t show up,” she hears him mumble.

“What?”

“Oh nothing, just making notes, gotta catch a hacker or something.  Sleep tight, _Elle_.”

The line goes dead and she’s left staring at the camera.  She was definitely going to have to find the rest of them. She slips out of her pants and climbs back into bed.  It feels like only minutes later when her alarm goes off and she chokes back a sob when she realizes that there’s not a drop of coffee in this apartment.

She opens the notepad on her phone and scrawls _buy coffee_ with her finger and then underlines it before leaving for work.


	6. Day Two: 3

Yesterday was a weird day, he thinks as he ties his sneakers.  First that girl had fallen on him, and then she’d freaked out on stage, which wasn’t even the weirdest part.  That casting agent or whatever he was, that had been the weirdest part.  No Kira’s agent had shown up just after she’d taken off and he’d given the director quite the earful for putting her in that position, Zen had to agree, it had been a shitty thing to do but that guy, he’d been weird.

 _That guy_ , he had still been there too, feet up on the back of the seat in front of him, he’d been sitting on his phone with a smug look on his face.  He’d slunk out of there smiling while the director and agent argued.  Zen had almost resolved to follow the guy but Min-Ju had cornered him to thank him for helping No out.

“She’ll be ok,” she smiled up at him bouncing on the balls of her feet.  “That was a really nice thing you did for her.”

He’d headed out then, but the weird guy was gone. 

Then there was the new member.  He thought about her while he ran.  It had been years since he’d felt anything about a woman, since he’d had time to even think about feeling anything about a woman and now, was it just her red hair reminding him of the girl that had fallen on him.  He laughs, to himself _maybe it’s time to bring back Zen the Knight_.

He’d even searched the songs he heard her singing with her friends, it had taken him more than a little time to find the versions they’d been covering but when he did he’d added them to his running playlist.

No hadn’t even mentioned his looks, she didn’t have to of course but that was weird.  He smiled remembering the way she’d called his name when he was going into the building, the way she’d blushed and covered her mouth when he turned around.  But Elle, she’d flirted, told him he was _pretty_ , she’d flirted with everyone, but was it just his ego talking or had the things she’d said to him been more direct.

He stops at a crosswalk and catches his breath, what was he even thinking?  Elle was probably a fan like Jaehee, and No, well he had no idea if No would even look at him again.  Still he kind of hoped she did.

*

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Miss. Lee that’s not very professional,” she couldn’t even remember which one this guy was.  They all blended together when they got like this and she was still exhausted.

“I suddenly forgot how to read,” she growls.  “Just like you apparently, this isn’t in my job description.”

“You know we’re all up to our eyeballs in projects right now, everyone is chest deep in overtime except you.”

“Who says I’m not tits deep in overtime,” she slams a folder of Jumin’s cat project sketches on the table.

“Chargeable overtime then,” he frowns.

“Isn’t there an actual animator on staff that can work on this bullshit?  Why are you slamming me with it?” She leans heavy on her drafting table and resists the urge to drag her hands down her face.  The coffee maker is right there, she can almost taste it but this asshole was waiting for her at the fucking door.  “I mean I’m not saying I can’t pull some storyboards together, but let’s be clear, you want me and me alone on this, that’s what you’re saying?”

He nods and she can see the smug smile creep across his face, the boys club closes in on her. “I just saw this project and I thought of you.”

 _Oh gross_ , she tries to control her face. “Yeah?  I mean considering our history,” she assumes they have a history, she had some kind of history with every good ol’boy in this department, they’d all had some kind of complaint about her in the last three years, “I wasn’t expecting this kind of faith in my work, and like I said, I am also _up to my chest_ in overtime, even if it isn’t chargeable it does come from Director Han.”

“Just take a look at the material, I felt you were specifically well versed in the content and we’ve all seen your resume Miss. Lee, job description or no you’re perfectly capable of this.  Unle—”

“Fuck, fine, whatever.  You all smell like old spice and antifungal cream please, I’ll tell Mr. Han that the cat project is on hold and I’ll do whatever this is.”

If she never heard an old man snicker at her again it would be too soon.  She couldn’t really make a complaint, this overtime would not be outside her contract and Jumin was going to have to accept that unless he waited until she had an account to charge she couldn’t make his weird obsession her priority.  But now, rehearsals, whatever work the RFA had in store for her and whatever this bullshit was?  There was not enough wine or coffee in the world.

She doesn’t waste time looking at the project, her priorities are clear, coffee first then she could sit down and figure out how pissed off she should be.  She was already uncomfortable, the only thing she had to wear was the dress and leggings she’d worn to her date and that was way more Femme than anything she’d normally wear to work.

Coffee in hand she slides into her stool and makes a note of the time.  She’d turned in story boards for two accounts to be approved yesterday and submitted one finalized board to production, she expected to hear from them later in the day and all she really had to work on was this new project so she slips the proposal out of its folder, anime screencaps flutter to the floor and she groans.

This is already bullshit, she hates the internet and she hopes every artery over the age of 46 in the room clogs.


	7. Day Two: 4

He didn’t need to see clearly to know that something had happened in Magenta.  There was an edge to the place, it brought to mind the way his breath would catch when he would drape himself over a precipice to get a clear shot of something, the feeling of knowing that it would take very little to fall.

He takes a few shallow breaths.  It had been getting harder to catch his breath lately and he wonders, not for the first time, how much longer until she gets bored.  How much longer before she’s satisfied with his display of loyal suffering. 

His fingers brush over the dusty camera on his desk when he hears the door to his room open.  He turns towards the sound, close enough that he can make out the familiar features of her favorite enforcer.  Pangs of regret tighten in his chests and he fights back a fit of coughing.

“She wants to eat with you this morning,” Saeren hisses.

He can’t help the curve of a smile that forms on his lips.  He nods and reaches for his cane, he doesn’t need it to find his way around Magenta but if she has something for him to do, he doesn’t want to disappoint her by being unprepared.

“You’re pathetic,” Saeren spits.  “She’s going to kill you soon.”

V shrugs, smiling still. “Whatever makes her happy.”  Things in Magenta were getting out of control, Rika’s Sadistic episodes were becoming more frequent than her periods of serenity and he’d done enough wrong in his life, if his death could bring even a small smile to her face, prolong a moment of calm.  He would walk willingly towards it.

*

“I’m sorry Mr. Han she went into the quiet room a few hours ago, she’s probably still there.”

Jumin frowns.  The quiet room was a sound proofed room on the artists side of marketing, it was supposed to be a break-room but it had been _converted_ , he heard a few people in other departments complain that they’d caught people from marketing napping in there, Noelle called it the screaming shack, and he’d heard it called the fuck off room by a young artist who hadn’t noticed him standing nearby.

It seemed Noelle may consider it the same, judging by the legal sheet sized sketch of a middle finger she’d taped to the closed door.  He doesn’t knock before he opens the door but he’s careful, remembering how she would throw things when he opened her bedroom door as kids.

She doesn’t notice, she seems to be wearing a headset, there’s 15 sketches scattered across a drafting table on the far end and he can see that one of the camera’s is set up across from her, the remote clasped in her hand.  She’s _dancing_?  There’s no way he won’t startle her, so he opts to unplug the headphones. 

Something that sounds like Opera, something he doesn’t recognise, plays loudly and she whirls around.

“Jesus, shit, _what_ ,” she throws her hands up.  “Oh fuck what now, what did they do?”

“What did who do?”

She wipes the sheen of sweat on her face away with her bare arm and he hands her his handkerchief.  “What did who do?  Assistant Kang was concerned that you hadn’t been home last night, I thought I would check on you to alleviate her concern.”

 _No you did not_ , she thinks.  “You want to see if I did any work on the cat food concepts is what you mean, and you didn’t want Miss. Kang to see you wasting resources.”

“Not exactly,” he frowns.

“Jumin do you have your assistant spying on me?”

“Of course not,” he looks at her like she’s insane and she can tell that Jaehee is at least keeping an eye on her.  “What’s the issue you seem to be having?”

“The cat stuff isn’t chargeable Jumin, I can’t keep making excuses, and they already act like I fucked my way into this job.”

He makes a face.  “I hate when you use that kind of vulgarity, Noelle.”

She shakes her head. “Sorry, but you know all they have to do is google me, which they seem to be doing.” She walks over to the drafting table and flips the folder open.  “They told me I was uniquely qualified for this _and_ they want me on it start to finish so I’m going to have to cut the cat stuff out until I’m done.”

Jumin leans over the folder, “skating?”

She nods.  “I guess one of our smaller clients wants to ride some popular anime to success, I don’t know if the campaign will work for them but that part’s not my problem.”

Jumin thumbs through the proposal, forgetting for a moment his reason for trying to speak with her.  “I know you feel that they’re trying to sabotage you but you _are_ uniquely qualified for this.”

“Oh my god,” she drags her palms down her face stretching out her cheeks and rolling her eyes.

“I realize this will take almost all of your time, it will likely be quite difficult with your rehearsal schedule, but considering your history and what they’re looking for I think you may be able to pull this off quite well and considerably under budget.  In which case you would likely be considered for promotion within your department, Father has mentioned that the excess of old men in marketing may be weighing us down.”

Noelle smirks.  “I guess I could probably get the video references I need without hiring models, and I am acquainted with one of the minor animators on the show they want to parody, I’ve got this showcase but if I get it I know my lines already so I could skip any superfluous rehearsal time.”

“You did not tell me that you were not going to go home last night,” Jumin ventures while she’s distracted.

“Rehearsal was shit, I got drinks with Mila and couldn’t drive home.”

Her face doesn’t even twitch.  “I had heard you had some difficulty.”

“Yeah from who?” She doesn’t look at him, she’s flicking through the photos she’d taken of herself, sending some to print and deleting others.

“That actor you ran into is in the RFA with me, I thought you knew that.”

She shrugs. “I dunno you probably told me, I forgot.  He was talking about me?”

“He seemed concerned, someone asked you to audition for a musical?  Why would you even try?”

“Oh fuck off, I said no but his agent is a— you know how I get, it was stupid.  You know I have to leave early today.”

“That seems counterproductive considering.”

“Not really I’m going to swing by Nina’s and throw some ideas at her and then I think I’ll go to the rehearsal space early and apologise to your friend,” _and pack a bag, and buy groceries and pick up my dog._

“You shouldn’t encourage him, Noelle, he has a complex.”

She laughs and the door slams open.  “Here you are,” Miss. Kang is glaring at Jumin, “is there some reason you have chosen to ignore your phone, Mr. Han.”

“Oh,” Jumin shrugs. “I was tired of hearing your voice, I assumed had it been important you would have emailed me.

“Jesus Christ,” Noelle snorts.


	8. Day Two: five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I may not not what day of the week it is anymore, sorry this is late.

 He’s on the train back from his meeting with the director when he wonders if No would be at rehearsal; He wants to tell her about getting the part.  Elle had seemed so excited she’d even left him a really cute voicemail while he was on a call with his agent just now but for some reason he wanted to tell No about it.  He couldn’t really figure out why, he hadn’t really gotten to talk to her all that much, but he wanted to know her better.

Maybe it was the intensity he saw when she was rehearsing, Elle was so cute but No, well she was definitely attractive, nope, this was a professional interest.  Watching her fence, watching her run lines, she could match his intensity if she did musicals, and she could sing if she got past her stage fright.

Yes, getting to know her was purely professional.

Standing on the train back into the city he sees a boy with blue hair and remembers the chat with V from earlier.  It had been weird, something had been off, and Elle’s demeanor had totally changed for the brief time they were talking to him.  _She must be a fan, god she’s so cute_ , that’s probably why V was strange, he could probably tell.

When he gets inside he doesn’t have to ask if anyone has seen her.  Most of the performers have stopped to eat, and being Friday the space is pretty empty but No is on the stage, the bright white of her headphone cord flares out with her movements, stark against the dark coloured tank top she wears. 

 _She’s dancing now_?  God was she just good at everything?  Well, not _good_ , there was something not right about the way she moved, she seemed to struggle with her feet.  Maybe he could offer to help?  But she stops and pulls her phone out of her shirt, makes some notes, stretches and starts again.

“Hyun, you’re back,” the director slaps him on the back.  “Did you forget something?”

“Oh, I, uh, just thought I’d—”

“Don’t hurt yourself kid, you don’t have to tell me which one it is.  You’ve got perfect timing regardless; I just got the first draft of your script.”

*

Nina had been happy to see her.  Noelle had arrived at the end of one of her classes, a bunch of grade school kids ranging in skill from constantly laying on the ice to practicing camel spins when they thought no one was looking.  She tried to sneak in and hide in the bleachers with the parents but Nina clearly saw her, she supposed being a head taller than most of the parents with a bright blue skate bag over her shoulder probably wasn’t the subtlest she could have been.

Nina had practically slammed into the boards and screamed her name.

“When you said you might stop by later I thought you meant _my house for a drink_ , you know since your short break has turned into six whole months.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up it’s just been really busy at work, and I’ve been spending a lot of times at rehearsals, I keep meaning to come back it’s just—”

“You do you babe,” Nina had laughed and planted a comical sucking kiss on her cheek.  “Get your skates on and help me round up these little monsters!”

She’d meant to, she really had but when she was lacing up her skates her phone had chimed and, well that had been the weirdest conversation she’d ever had.  V was Jihyun, she’d known that, it was his Photography Psued, but he’d been cold.  Maybe that’s who he was now, no one seemed to find it out of place, Zen had seemed so happy to see him. 

Was she crying, _shit_ , it had been so long.  Did he know it was her?  No, why did she care.  She didn’t care if Jihyun knew, so what if he’d been like that on purpose, it was probably for her benefit, this was why she didn’t call him.

“Hey, if you didn’t want to skate with the kids you could have just said,” Nina frowned down at her but her face softened.  “Noelle, what’s wrong? Sorry, I didn’t-”

She shook her head. “No it’s fine, I got distracted by one of those sad dog transformations on facebook.”

Nina shook her head.  “You didn’t, but you don’t have to talk about it, what’s up?”

Noelle leads her friend back to the ice and explained the situation to her, of course Nina was already familiar with the source, just like she’d hoped and after two hours on the ice, not only did Noelle have more reference shots than she knew what to do with, they’d managed to work out a simple standalone program that Noelle was going to animate in her non-existent free time as plan-b.

Just like she’d hoped Nina didn’t even want payment, Noelle simply had to commit to coming back to their skating family, teaching a group class once a week, and consider coaching private lessons.

“I know you’ve got a lot on your plate but as soon as you finish this project I get you one day a week, guaranteed, that’s all I ask.”

Noelle had laughed and agreed.

With that worked out she went home, proper home, and packed a bag.  Her things, Darryl’s things, her computer and tablet, she even grabbed her favorite mug out of the cupboard.  She collected Darryl from her neighbor and thanked her profusely.

“Are you moving Noelle?”

“Oh no Ma’am,” Noelle smiled up at the older woman from where she knelt in front of her dog, “just house sitting for a while.”

“Oh that’s very kind of you.”

She drags 2 suitcases, a gig bag, a laptop bag and a giant dog into the elevator.  Her phone chimes again as she drops everything in the entry way.  Darryl saunters past, laying one big slobbery kiss on her forehead before surveying his temporary kingdom and Noelle lets herself fall gently to the floor where she lays face down while she fishes her phone out of her pocket.

“So are you married to your dog?” 707 laughs on the other end of the phone.

“It’s an open relationship,” she grunts.

“So is that a family thing?  Does Chief Han have a ferret his girlfriends can never live up to?”

Noelle sits up cross legged and laughs.  “You know we’re not really related right?  I mean big bad hacker did a background check on me so...”

“Hey the internet says you guys were doing the incest, who am I to question— No, No, Elle don’t hang up I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

“It’s not funny, that ruined my life, okay, and it was a stupid rumor nothing ever happened.”

“I could get rid of it if you want,” his voice is earnest, softer than she’d yet heard.

“It’s been so long, the damage is done.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, “I’ve already got a program that can do the job, just a little tweak, it’s already going along, hungry little buddy, no more nasty rumors about you and your not-brother.”

She laughs despite herself.  Where was this guy 8 years ago?

“Byebye,” he chirps and the line goes dead.

*

She’s sitting in her car in the free parking lot a few blocks from the rehearsal space when her phone chirps again.  She’d gotten groceries and decided to pack dinner for herself; she’d eat it when she got home probably, she rarely ever had an appetite when she was rehearsing.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks the notification from the messenger.  Zen is excited about a new role, _written just for him, Jesus where do I find fangirls?_   She swallows her jealousy and cheers him on.  She’d flirted with him earlier in the day and she was tempted to call him and flirt again, it would stem the disappointment.  He was on his way home.

 _Fuck it_ , she does call him but it goes straight to voicemail.  She leaves a message for him, conscious of the pitch of her voice, a little higher than her practiced speaking voice, a little more femme than she normal goes for, 707 had been clear he couldn’t know that she was Elle.

Her agent is more than apologetic and she feels her body tense in anticipation as he lifts her off the floor in an bear hug.  She shrugs and hangs her things up, switches to her slippers and scouts out the stage.  She should be running lines, finding someone to read with her at the audition, they’d specified they wanted the performers to bring a scene partner, someone not vying for a role in the showcase. 

But she really needed to get the flow of this choreography down, she had the foot work down when she’d left but Nina had been on her about her arms.  She had slacked on her workouts, and her core had suffered, it was hard to keep her arms moving the way Nina liked to see when she was distracted by her posture, the way her stomach was jiggling, the way she felt so wobbly.  Nina could see it too; she hadn’t added any jumps despite Noelle’s history.

It was probably the weirdest dance, so much should happen while she was gliding, she stops and makes a few notes and scans the stage, maybe if she had a balance beam to stand on it would be more effective.  It’s a stupid idea.  Min-ju corners her.

“So that’s cool, are you going to a really slow rave or something?”

“Do people still go to raves?” she laughs. 

Min-ju cocks her head to the side.

“Thinking of getting back into skating.”

“That’s random, are you giving up the dream then?”

Noelle laughs, “which dream?”

Min-ju throws her arms to the sides and spins in a circle. “This one, of course.”

Min-ju isn’t there to rehearse, she tells Noelle, but she didn’t want to admit that she just didn’t have plans for Friday night, she’s still young and excited to be disappointing her parents.  She tweaks some of Nina’s program and runs line with Noelle for another hour or so.

“So did you hear about your boyfriend’s new role?”

“My _what_ ,” she chokes on her water.

Min-ju laughs.  “Or your hero or whatever, Zen,” she fakes a swoon when she says his name and Noelle laughs.

“Yeah, I heard something about it.”

“Can you imagine,” Min-ju swings her feet dreamily, “do you think they’re really adapting it especially for him?”

Noelle shrugs.  “I should apologize to him for yesterday.”

“Eh, whatever.”

“Is he here?”

“Do you _like_ him,” the smaller woman whispers.

“I’ve only talked to him once,” Noelle frowns.

“Then what are you so worried about?”

“It’s manners, MJ, I literally fell on him yesterday and then whatever happened on that stage last night.  He was really nice, that’s all.”

“ _Okay_ ,” she draws it out and squints suspiciously.  “I think I saw him in the reading room when I came in.”

Noelle’s phone chimes again in the hallway.

“WooOooOOOoo,” 707 warbles into her ear, “it is I the ghost of boyfriends yet to come.”

“Oh my god,” she groans.

“Just a friendly reminder that Zen does not know you’re Elle.  Remember No and Elle are separate until the party, when you can finally be—”

“Please don’t.”

“Noelle.”

“Please never make my name a pun again.”


	9. Day Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for Suicide mentions/Suicide attempts

Saturdays are not the same when you’re not in your own home, and they’re really not the same when you’ve got an entire day of work ahead of you.  Noelle gets up early and meets Nina at the rink.  She’s waiting by the door laughing at Jumin and Zen bickering in the messenger when Nina saunters up, keys ready.

“I thought I said to take your time,” her friend yawns.

“I thought you said you’d be here already,” Noelle laughs.

She sets up a few cameras around the rink, this was Nina’s private rink time, it would just be the two of them.  Nina is on the ice in no time and Noelle takes her time getting her skates on, video of Nina warming up wouldn’t hurt. 

Noelle pulls her sweater off and makes sure her phone has connected to the little speaker she’d brought back, she sets the playlist to repeat and catches up to her friend. 

Nina points at her chest. “It’s been a while are you sure you’re ok in that thing?”

“I’m good,” Noelle gives her a thumbs up.  “I need some pairs shots and I don’t think they’re ready for gay mascots just yet.”

“Ironic considering the inspiration,” Nina snorts.

Between them she has plenty of video to finish her storyboard and do a short rotoscope demonstration for the client’s approval.  If she works most of the weekend she can even be ahead of schedule.  It’s an uneventful day both in her temporary home and in the world of the RFA.

She misses her own apartment, whoever Rika was in life she did not have nearly enough table tops in her apartment to accommodate the kind of space Noelle needed when she worked.  She makes it work however, between taking Darryl for walks and fielding calls and chats in the messengers she’s not even sure how she’s still going.  After the last few days she should be ready to fall into a coma.  But somehow she’s ahead of the schedule she’d set to be specifically _ahead of schedule_.

When her phone rings Darryl whines at the Tina Belcher groan she uses as her ringtone, it’s mid afternoon and she’s sitting on a table at the dog park.

“Two calls in one week, this is the worst lottery I’ve ever won.”

“Where are you right now?” Jumin asks.

She groans. “Since when are you my keeper?  Is there something going on I should be worried about?”

Jumin hates not knowing.  She can hear it in his voice, he wants her to admit she’s the woman in the messenger.  But Luciel had been very clear, under no circumstance could she tell him, and she knew Jumin enough to know he’d never outright ask her.  Anyone else he would but not her.

“You were not answering your home phone; I was simply curious how your new project was progressing.  Mr. Jeong had expressed some concern that you had taken a large amount of tools with you when you’d left yesterday.”

“What specifically was his concern?”

“Noelle, if you grind your teeth like that you will break them,” Jumin scolds her.

“Fuck off,” she laughs. 

“Well,” he says expectantly.

“It’s going well, I did not steal anything, I took some cameras and spent this morning at the rink.  I’m way ahead of where I thought I’d be but this is the easy part really, I still need to find a second skater and I do have a back up presentation I’m going to prepare.”

“The client seems to be very clear on what they would like.”

“They are but all of the notes seem to want to leave any kind of copyright issues up to parody laws.  I can only shave so much off this with my connections; legal fees are a whole different ball game.”

It hadn’t mattered how many times she ran the designs with the client’s specifications she couldn’t see there not being a legal issue.  This was a sales campaign not fan art.

Jumin makes a thoughtful sound.  “Could you send me a photo of my nephew, and I will let you get back to your day.”

Noelle laughs, and hears the line go dead.  She snaps a selfie with Darryl, careful not to reveal any of the apartment, and sends it off to Jumin who responds with a photo of Elizabeth III.

*

What a day it had been.  He’d gone for a run first thing, all the way to the library and borrowed a copy of Hamlet.  He’d overheard No’s friends talking about how she knew almost the entire script by heart and he’d felt inadequate.  He’d never been good at school and he’d been so focused on musicals he’d never even considered performing something like Shakespeare but No had actually studied it.

And all that stuff she’d said about her childhood.  It was stupid that he was jealous that she’d had voice lessons for so long when it had caused her so much pain but there was a small part of him that couldn’t help it.  Her father may have expressed it horribly but he’d been supportive of her talent.  Zen slaps himself, supportive in a terrible, awful way.

He scanned over the scene, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking at, and he should have gotten her phone number.  He did have Elle’s number though.  He’d already called her once, and then she’d called him when he was getting the shower.  God that girl, she might be as bad as he was.

His eyes wander his small apartment and settle on the little lunch bag on his counter.  Had anyone ever brought him lunch before?  Fans had sent him sweets, and there was the odd woman and even man who had given him pastries, or bought him lunch but no one had ever made him a lunch, not since his mother.

He’s relieved when it’s time to leave for his meeting.  Not that the meeting itself had been anything exciting.  He was uncomfortable with how the writer seemed to throw herself at him, the way she took every opportunity to touch him.  He’s distracted, by Elle and her flirtatious call, and by unreadable No, who makes him lunch and lays her heart bare but seems to look right through him.

It’s all he can do not to check his phone at every opportunity.

*

“Missed a spot,” Luciel snickers as he hears the little pop that indicates his timed crumb bomb was successful.

Vanderwood growls from somewhere behind him but is sufficiently distracted, Luciel minimizes his work and glances at the security camera’s in the apartment.  Elle had been busy all day.  They’d gotten up and taken off just as he was starting to pass out at his keyboard this morning, and then they’d been working hard since. 

He’d caught Elle, fielding messages from the app, and taking calls and all the time there were sketch books, and paper being filled with sketches.  They resolution was not good enough to see what they were doing but from what he’d caught through monitoring the call Elle had gotten from Jumin later that day, Luciel could see that it was work.

At least Jumin seemed to expect that level of commitment from everyone at C&R, not just Jaehee.

“That’s a familiar face,” Vanderwood squinted over his shoulder.

“Ah!” Luciel shrieked, he was rewarded with a slap to the side of his head.  “Madam, you gave me quite the frighten,” he snorted.

“Why are you watching this kid?” Vanderwood ignores him and watches the monitor intently. 

Luciel turns and narrows his eyes on his handler.  “Are you both members of the androgyny club or something?”

“My last problem child had this job,” Vanderwood shrugs.  “It was a little below us really, a smear campaign but whatever, the agency was pretty new back then.  Find dirt on this kid, or plant it if we couldn’t.”

“So what did you do?” Maybe this would explain the bizarre mishmash of information his background check had turned up.

Vanderwood shrugged.  “Made it up, she was a pretty good kid, reasonably wild. The step brother was kind of a mess but from what I’ve heard he’s out grown it, despite everything.  We altered some text logs, a few photos.  Her father paid us a lot of money to drag her through the mud and make sure no one forgot it.”

Luciel’s eyes flick to his computer and his chest tightens.  The worm he’d released to delete all the hits on Noelle and Jumin had picked up a program releasing them within moments.  He’d disabled his own agencies program. He tries to suppress a smug smile.

Elle had only just come back into the apartment with their giant people named dog, he wondered if that was a habit they’d picked up from Jumin. He watched Elle, through 4 cameras while he listened to Vanderwood explain how it was this agency, Vanderwood’s previous agent even, that had, as Elle put it, _ruined their life._

Camera one in the entry way watches Elle, kick off their boots and leave them in the middle of the floor, camera two on the computer catches a pair of jeans flop over the back of a chair and Camera three in the kitchen shows Elle in a pair of briefs and a hoodie chugging juice from the carton.

“Whatever you’re doing,” Luciel turns to look as Vanderwood barks, “can wait, you need to—” he pushes his hair back and snorts.  “Well she’s smarter than I’d have thought.”

He looks back to the monitor, three of the feeds are warped like a bad dream sequence, Elle comes into focus on Camera one, a jar of oil under their arm.  They flip the camera off but walk away leaving it intact.

*

_He’d never seen Jumin so angry.  He’d pulled him out of fights more often than either would have admitted to their parents but that had been years ago, not since Noelle.  But right now, even with Rika in the other room getting ready to go out he thought that Jumin might hit him._

_He’d never been afraid of Jumin before._

_“This isn’t my fault,” he said softly.  But he knew from the way Jumin’s scowl wavered that he lacked conviction_

_They’d all seen the news, his mother had called him before dawn the urgency of the news superseding their different time zones.  Noelle was in the hospital.  Noelle had almost died.  It had been unclear then, as the news broke exactly what had happened and his mother, for all her absences, had whispered into the receiver, did he think her father hurt her.   Rika had been lying next to him when he hung up staring expectantly with her kind eyes, bright even in the dim light of his phone._

_“That sounded serious, is your mother alright?”_

_“She’s fine,” he’d said.  And then he’d lied.  It had been almost a year since Noelle had moved, this relationship was new he didn’t want her to know about Noelle, know that he’d given up so easily.  Rika was so fragile at times and he felt so guilty._

_Jumin glared at him from the doorway.  “She tried to kill herself, Jihyun.”_

_He would have rather Jumin hit him, hearing Jumin of all people say it out loud had been worse than reading it in the paper, or fielding the inquisitive texts from his mother.  Still he had trouble believing it.  “Are you sure,” he ventures, trying to keep his voice even.  Rika is in the next room.  He doesn’t want her to know._

_“Do you know how many reporters have called me? There’s a gaggle of them in lobby just waiting for me to come back down.” He pushes past V and sits heavily in an armchair.  “My father called Mr. Lee, it’s not conjecture on the media’s part she did this to herself.” Jumin leans forward with his head in his hands._

_“I’m sorry,” he says, he doesn’t know what else to say._

_“You should tell her that,” Jumin snaps at him._

_The door to the bedroom opens after a few moments of uncomfortable silence and V watches Jumin transform, the harsh angles of his face soften and his shoulders relax, he smiles at Rika._

_“Oh,” she chirps, “am I running behind I thought we were leaving at 7.”_

_Jumin smiles softly at her.  “No, you’re perfect; I had just stopped to let V know I won’t be able to come with you tonight.”_

_“Are you sure?” She pouts.  “V is acting like someone died today, I was really looking forward to letting you cheer him up after the show.”_

_He watches the way Jumin controls his breathing when he shifts his focus from Rika to himself.  “I’m sorry Rika,” he doesn’t take his eyes of V as he stands.  “I’m sure as lovely as you are in that dress Jihyun will have a hard time staying sad._

Why was he remembering that?  That had been the night Rika had first seen Hyun. She’d been so upset that Jumin had canceled on them, and they’d gotten into a fight on the way to the theatre, he was hiding something, and she could tell, she could always tell.  He’d been relived when her attention switched to the show stealing boy with the red eyes and silver hair.  They’d gotten dinner afterwards and she’d spent the whole evening trying to find out more about him, distracted from her earlier ire.

No one has been to see him since last night.  She’d declared today a day of joy and ecstasy and as so often happened he was excluded.  His job was to suffer, though truth be told the tightness in his chest felt lessened and his head seemed clearer somehow.  It was almost a relief to be alone on these days, even with the dark turns his thoughts would take by evening.  He knows he’s safe from himself.  He knows Saeren is outside his door.

Saeren had taken him out past the signal jammer earlier that day to receive and return calls to Luciel. 

“Only Luciel,” he’d cautioned, spitting his brother’s name.

Luciel had spoke hushed, and excitedly about the new member, whispering about Hyun and his growing infatuation, and from the sounds of it V could guess Luciel had a small crush of his own.  “R-respect,” Luciel had stuttered when he said as much.

Saeren growls and glares when V laughs.

He checks his messages while Saeren huffs and groans impatiently at him.  He wants to be done out here, left to what small bits of _joy and ecstasy_ he is allowed while monitoring the RFA and V.

“There are a lot of messages from Jumin,” V finds himself saying.  “He wants Luciel to give him this Elle woman’s background check? He wants me to call him, he says it’s urgent.”

“No,” Saeren says and he grabs V’s hand leading him roughly back into Magenta.

He’d argued briefly that Jumin would be more suspicious that he’s being ignored than if he’s appeased or fed excuses but was met only with _Savior’s said_ , and the usual threats of violence.

His fingers brush the lens of his camera and he wonders if there’s enough vision in his left eye to capture the way the last light of the day plays across the tile floor of his room, does the reality look as stark as he thinks? 

He considers briefly if he fell from his window camera in hand, would the last image he captures be a beautiful as her smile.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day three is just this chapter.


	10. Day Four: 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Space Between](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10929327) went up yesterday, if you're interested in Noelle, Jumin, and V when they were teenagers, it will posted in 3 parts as I finish it.

She’s sitting on a picnic table at the park with Darryl when she pulls her phone out.  The big dog whines at her and she shrugs.  “I know, stop judging me.”

Yoosung is alone in the chat when she enters and they’ve barely said hello when Jihyun shows up.  _V_ she corrects herself, if she kept thinking of him as Jihyun she would say something and the big secret would be revealed.

 _Big secret_ , what was 707 worried about, what could this charity group have that anyone really dangerous would want.  Yet as stupid as she thought the whole situation was, it was an adventure and she was kind of eating it up.  She had no doubt that, whatever his real name was, 707 was definitely more than a hacker.  The surveillance on the apartment was impressive; she’d counted four cameras, found 7 different _bugs_ not to mention a number of sensors she couldn’t identify.

Noelle barely paid attention to the chat, she should be watching it closer but that nagging feeling about V pulled at her chest and her mind begin to drift.  She answered in short curt sentences, sometimes he would say something and she would think _he knew_ and she would curse the way her heart leapt at that thought that he was thinking of her.

Throwing the party in a week didn’t seem like such a big deal but Yoosung was obviously upset, the sudden switch in his mood caught her eye and she immediately starts to mediate the chat.  _It’s not a big deal_ she tries to impart.  She’s had worse deadlines, it’s not a big deal.

 _He knows_ , she hears her seventeen year old self cry again and her chest tightens watching the chat, waiting for her phone to ring, a text to sing out.  _Of course he knows_ , 707 did a background check, 707 knows about Jumin, he’d know about Jihyun. 

V is gone as quickly as he arrived, barely a goodbye.  She lingers at the table and tries to calm Yoosung down.  Something about him resonates with the person she _was_ and she doesn’t want to ignore him.  There’s something so strange about the way they talk about this woman, even Jihyun.  The reverence, more than just that she’d died, or that she’d taken her own life.

She can’t stand here with her phone out any longer, she takes Darryl back to the apartment and changes, if she’s going to start training with Nina again she’ll need to start working out.

*

He’s eating lunch with his father when his phone rings.  Jumin excuses himself and lets his phone softly vibrate in his pocket while he finds a place where he won’t be intruding on anyone’s peace.  It also brings him no small joy to make her wait.

“You’ve decided to return my calls then.”

“What?” He can clearly picture the way she would curl her lip with that tone.

“I have left you a number of voicemails,” he scolds her.

“Why wouldn’t you just call my cell phone.”

“I was concerned,” he says sardonically.

“The ringer is off,” she says.  “You should have called my cell phone if you were worried.”

“It was not,” he states, “I stood outside your apartment this morning and I could hear it ringing.”

“You’re being really weird, Jumin.  Why are you loitering in my building on a Sunday morning?”

“I was not _loitering_ , I had to retrieve some paperwork from Assistant Kang.”

“God Jumin can’t she even get one day a week, doesn’t she go to church on Sundays?  Leave her alone.”

He chuckles.  “You’re obviously not going to tell me what you’re doing—”

“Bringing shame to the family name,” she interrupts.

He ignores her.  “I assume you had a reason to interrupt my lunch.”

“Tell the old man I say Hello,” she chirps.

“Noelle.”

“The gym in your building, do I need some kind of fancy ID to use it?  My membership expired like _months_ ago and I don’t want to dip into my savings so some noodle arm asshole can try to explain an inversion table to me.”

“It is not out of the question, I could have security let you in for today, and have a new keycard made for you.”

“Everything I’ve ever said to your assistant was a lie, you truly are a caring and compassionate person,” she laughs.

“I will choose to ignore that,” he tries to sound unimpressed but he’s smiling too.  “However isn’t my building out of the way?”

“It’s on the way to rehearsal, not a big deal.  Some of us drive, you know?  Besides it’s worth it to be totally alone.”

“When do you plan to go, should I have someone ready to let you in?”

*

Standing in the shower room in the gym she was torn, it _looked_ clean, and there was almost never anyone in the gym as far as she’s ever seen.  That didn’t mean that it didn’t get used and this still was basically a public shower stall.  On the other hand she still had the temporary key that should work the elevator to her brother’s penthouse; she could use his shower, his huge shower with the multiple shower heads and temperature presets.  She shoulders her gym bag and chances the elevator, after a short moment where she almost turns around the ground shifts and the elevator starts to move.

She finger guns one of Jumin’s security bulldogs on her way to his door, she’s sure the stern looking man is phoning Jumin as she checks her key to his door.   Jumin’s cat weaves between her feet as she closes the door behind her.  She kneels down in front of the cat and scratches behind her ears.

“Don’t tell your husband, alright Libby?”

Elizabeth III meows softly in response and saunters away.

She hadn’t even realized that her phone had connected to the Bluetooth in Jumin’s penthouse until she was rinsing her hair and the little display in the shower started chirping at her.  Of course he’d be wired to answer calls in the shower, he barely slept, and he lived and breathed his work.  It was probably Jumin anyway, wondering what she was doing in his house.

The display reads out Zen’s number however and she freezes, hesitating for a moment before she hit the answer button.

“Hey Babe, you weren’t busy were you?”

“N-nope,” she stammers, there seems a strange intimacy to answering the phone in the shower.

“Are you ok?” he asks.  “Is it raining where you are?”

“No,” she says, “I’m fine, I’m just,” she freezes, does she just say it?  Tell him she’s in the shower?  Is that weird? “I’m in the shower.”

“Babe,” he chuckles but his voice cracks a little. “You’ll ruin your phone, call me when you’re done.”

“No,” she laughs, listening to the way he’s straining to control his voice, “I don’t have the phone in here with me dummy. My brother has Bluetooth in his shower.”

“You have a brother?” He asks, distracted for a moment.

“Yeah,” she says, of all the things for him to focus on right now. 

“Do you live there?” he asks.

She smiles to herself.  There’s an obvious tension in his voice. “Nope,” she shuts the water off and steps out of the shower.  “He’s out, but it’s closer to the gym than my apartment,” _like in the building_ , she thinks, “and on the way to work.”

“You work on Sundays?” He asks.

“Sometimes,” she laughs.

“Is something funny?” he asks.

“It’s just,” she pauses a moment to make sure she’s removed her call from the Bluetooth system, but she leaves it on speaker phone, “You started out so strong.”

“What?” He chokes a little.

“I mean you called to flirt right?”  She pulls on her underwear and glances between her bra and binder, deciding on the bra before starting to braid her hair.

“Hah, you caught me,” she can almost hear him blushing.

“You sound really cute when you’re flustered,” she smiles at her reflection in the mirror. “Like a puppy.”

“Babe,” he says with an edge to his voice.  “I am not a puppy, if I was there you’d see I’m a wolf.”

She snorts and covers the phone, she hopes he didn’t hear that.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” but she can hear him swallow hard.

“You couldn’t even handle talking to me on the phone while I was showering, how much of a wolf can you be?”

“It’s not,” he stammers again, “it’s just that I’m a gentleman.”

“I’d rather the wolf,” she laughs, but he _was_ cute when he was flustered.  It had only been a few days like this but she wondered if he was starting to actually like her.

She was starting to think that she might like him.  Would she think that if she only knew the aloof but kind actor or if she only knew this flirting mess of a man on the other end of the phone?  She hadn’t even been interested in him the few times they’d been in shows together.  He was never more than professional and kind to the casts and crews he worked with but he’d always distanced himself.  She’d thought it was arrogance but after the last few days and the way he’d smiled down at her that night on the stairs. Had that been the moment?

“Then what are you wearing?” He asks.

“uh-what,” she stammers caught off guard, “oh!” She smirks in the mirror. “Well I haven’t gotten dressed yet—”

“Oh,” his voice is quiet.

“Boyshorts,” she whispers “Purple boyshorts.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath and then nothing and she starts to get dressed, tanktop and bicycle shorts under a high-waisted skirt, she’d decided to go femme tonight to help her get into character, she wasn’t reading for Viola after all.

“What about,” his breath catches and she smiles to herself.  As confident as he came off he was still human.  It made her like him more, “your uh, your bra,” he whispers.

God how was she going to go to rehearsal and pretend like she hadn’t just had this conversation with him? She glances in the mirror and then into her shirt.  “Blue I guess, it doesn’t match I hadn’t planned to wear it.”

It sounds like he’s coughing, and then she hears him _apologise_ to someone. 

“Uh, Zen, where are you right now?” She asks and she can hear the soft pad of Elizabeth jumping down from something before the door to Jumin’s penthouse opened.

“The, hmm, the train,” he admits.                                                                                      

She can’t help it, she bursts into cackling laughter. “I am so sorry,” she practically snorts through gasping breaths.

“Noelle,” Jumin calls.

“It’s fine,” he says.  “It’s ok. I’m sorry.”

She tries to control her laughter.

“Noelle?” Jumin calls from somewhere closer.

“I have to go Zen,” she says, still chuckling, “my brother just got back.” She doesn’t wait for him to hang up, she has to close the messenger before Jumin finds her.

She brushes past him as he makes to knock on the bathroom door.

“You look very nice,” he says following her out, “but could you explain why you were in _my_ bathroom.”

“Your shower is a religious experience.  Compared to a lukewarm possibility of foot fungus?  Seems pretty obvious.” She crouches down and pats Elizabeth III again.  “Who ratted on me, was it the grumpy looking guy?”

“No one _ratted_ on you Noelle, I could hear you cackling like Doctor Frankenstein.”

“How’s Dad?” She shrugs.

“My Father is well, you know that you saw him last week.”

“I’m being polite Jumin.”

“You look uncommonly feminine,” he says gesturing to her skirt and waving his hand dismissively at her chest.

“Jesus, Jumin,” she shakes her head. 

“I thought you said you weren’t in love with him.”

“What?  Jumin I’m rehearsing, I’m just trying to be in character.”

He narrows his eyes at her unconvinced. “Is that so?”

“Yeah it is,” she raises an eyebrow at him, “what are you so concerned about?  You’ve been weird.”

Jumin hangs his jacket over the back of a chair.  “Have I?” he considers and he loosens his tie. “The same could be said of you.”

She smiles.  “I’m erratic; I have mental illness, what’s your excuse.”

Jumin snorts.  “Fine, we don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

“Jumin, I’m going to be late, I didn’t mean to take so long but—”

“Religious experience,” he says and waves her off.  “It has been a long time since we’ve had dinner together, when you’ve finished this project we should do that again.”

“You’ll have to invite the old man,” she smiles.

Jumin takes her hand and she kisses his cheek before she leaves.

He frowns at her back as she closes the door and when he hears her laughing in the hallway he touches his cheek, his fingers come away covered in her dark red lipstick.

 


	11. Day Four: 2

It was easy to keep an eye on Elle for the most part, but in the apartment they were _crafty,_ obviously they’d been around some better than average security systems in their life.  He wished he had the time to sit and really talk with them, or maybe just the time to figure out what the hell was going on with this hacker.

Outside though, Elle didn’t show the same awareness. They didn’t seem to go far out of their way, he always had an idea where they were off to, they kept a pretty regular schedule and keeping tabs of their phone had been easy enough, the app gave him a backdoor into any member’s phone.

And that’s what he was doing now, rummaging through V’s phone, well sort of.  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust V, he owed plenty to the man, but he’d _changed_.  Luciel wanted to chalk it up to Rika’s death but after two years he was starting to have doubts.  For one he was always so hard to get in contact with, even when he was not traveling.

He used to always be available, even when Rika’s health had started to decline, he had almost never missed a call, and he always called right back, always apologetic.  Now he never seemed to get his calls, always returning them hours later, an emergency could take anywhere from an hour to a day for a response and he always seemed so surprised that the call had been so long ago. 

Then there was the way it seemed like it wasn’t always V responding to texts.  The way he’d been so cautious in the last two years but was so quick to accept Elle into the RFA. He’d given him a phone, one that would signal him if it had been bugged but now, it didn’t even look like he was using it. 

Not to mention the way the connection had just dropped so suddenly in the middle of his search, like he’d just phased into another dimension.  Luciel supposed he should just feel lucky his calls were returned since even Jumin’s calls seemed to go unanswered lately.

He’d noticed in the last two days, there were always two or three faces in the crowd around Elle that he could pick out.  No one could really blame him for pulling up the CCTV feed when he knew where they’d gone, Elle’s arrival in the RFA had been sudden and suspicious, but Elle seemed oblivious to the tail they’d acquired.

He’d thought, the first time he’d noticed it, that it was coincidence.  They’d stayed in a small area that first day, gone to work, an ice rink, rehearsal, home, the apartment, and he hadn’t been as vigilant with Vanderwood breathing down his neck.

Then yesterday there the faces were again, in a car outside the skating rink way too early for it to be coincidence, then again that afternoon he’d caught them on the CCTV outside the park Elle had taken their dog to, the park was out of the way, not a popular spot as far as he knew, not that he got out much.  Today he’d seen them at the park again, then outside Jumin’s penthouse, outside the building Rika’s apartment was in. 

Always the same two men, but he’d seen a profile behind them, one that seemed impossibly familiar.  One that had him hacking into V’s phone. Or at least trying to.

“Argh,” he groaned and slumped in his chair.  At least Vanderwood wasn’t here today.  He’d had time to monitor Elle more closely, and leave too many messages on Vs voicemail.    He pulls up the CCTV for the parking garage to Jumin’s building.  He watches Elle get in their car and pull away, those familiar faces parked 3 cars over pull out seconds later.

He lets his face fall onto his keyboard and ignores the angry series of noises his computer makes, his fingers already know the familiar patterns of his phone screen and he calls Elle without even looking, he thumps his face on the keyboard a few more times before lifting the receiver to his ear.

“Alert Alert,” he calls out, “the safety app detects that you are using your phone while driving.”  He doesn’t feel chipper, he doesn’t feel like joking, this is serious but he doesn’t want to scare Elle, so joke he does.

“You know hands free exists right?  It’s a thing, you can buy an adapter on the cheap.”

“I’m so charming, how could you ever concentrate,” he quips.

“It’s difficult,” they agree, “I do feel the urge to run into oncoming traffic when you call.”

“Ah, you too, long for death,” he laughs.  “I knew we were meant for one another, soul mates even, the 606 to my 707.”

Elle snorts.

“So, here’s a funny question.”

“Shoot.”

“What are the chances that Mr. Trustfundkid has a security detail on you?”

There’s silence from the other end, just the quite hum of the engine, and road noise.  “No, not without warning me, he knows I’d kill him,” they say firmly.

“You’re sure?” he knows he’s being too serious too sudden, he’s sure they’re going to worry now.

“No, if Jumin was worried enough to do that he’d have said something to me by now, probably make me stay with him, by force if he felt like he needed to. He’s been weird the last few days but I’m sure that’s about the messenger not worrying, unless you think Jihyun may have told him something.”

“Jihyun,” he draws out the name. And they inhale sharply.

“V,” they correct.  “I mean he approved me joining, it’s not like he doesn’t know who I am.”

“Yeah of course,” Luciel says numbly.

“What’s going on, Seven?”

“You should turn around and go home,” he says firmly.

“I can’t.”

“You should go home and you should clean the lenses of the cameras you messed up.”

“Seven if I don’t go to rehearsal tonight Zen is going to be suspicious.”

“I thought you were an actor,” he snaps, “why is everyone so damned suspicious of you.”

“Wow, calm down.  Tell me what’s going on.  If there’s something going on won’t I be safer in a group of people who know me; if I’m rehearsing with Zen rather than if I’m in that apartment alone?  The apartment that no one knows I’m staying in?”

They had a point; he doubted anyone suspicious could get close to Elle at the rehearsal space without being noticed.  They way Zen had been in the messenger, he was sure Elle would be in good hands.  Still he was uneasy.

“Fine,” he relented.  “It’s ok, just don’t go anywhere alone.”

“I mean I’ll walk in alone,” she says softly.  “The free parking lot is like a block away.”

He bites his lip in frustration. “Pay for parking tonight,” he starts pulling up city maps and rattles off address to the closest parking lot he can monitor.

“That’s private parking, Seven.”

He sighs, exaggerated. “Text me when you get there, don’t worry about it, and make sure Zen walks you to your car.”

*

He still finds his mind wondering back to the phone call with Elle.  He’d just wanted to flirt, something to pump him up before his meeting with the director, well he’d been _pumped up_ , uncomfortably so.  She’d caught him off guard. He’d been on the train surrounded by people, _besides_ like anyone wouldn’t have responded like that to knowing the woman they were talking to was naked in the shower.

_God._

Then the way she’d shifted, the bold way she’d called him out and then she’d called him _cute_ , a puppy.  He sighs.  He’d stepped out for a cigarette after his meeting with the director, he still had to go in and find No.  How was he going to get through this evening? _I’d rather the wolf._ God, he would have skipped his meeting and gone to find her if it were possible but he’d gotten several texts from Seven that claimed that it was totally out of the question.

No is laying on the stage with her feet hanging over the edge when he peeks into the main rehearsal area.  He almost misses her, it’s not until she sits up and waves that he recognizes the halo of red hair coming loose from her braid.  He watches her turn and gesture at the people behind her, the way the skirt she’s wearing flutters out when she slides off the stage.

 _Hyun stop_ , he scolds himself, but he finds himself wondering what else she’d hidden under loose shirts.

She slaps a stapled set of script pages against his chest and bumps him with her shoulder.  They take seats at the back of the room near a pair of pot lights and she starts to excitedly explain the scene to him, he’s not sure if he’s thankful or offended.

“Hey, No, slow down,” he smiles.

Her face is bright and she freezes mid hand gesture, to smile at him.  “You can call me Noelle, No Kira is just a stage name.”

“I like No,” he laughs.

“So I’m probably boring you, I’m a complete geek for this, why don’t you just start with the soliloquy.”

“The uh, hah.”

“Hamlet’s speech,” she smiles at him.  The way the nicer teachers had smiled at him before he quit school.

He does what she asks but it’s hard to pay attention to the lines. He’d gotten a copy from the library this morning and had made himself familiar with the lines but she’s sitting across from him making _faces_. “I’m sorry,” he stops.  “Am I _that_ bad.”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m really picky.”

“What.”

“It’s just you should be reading in blank verse, you know?”

“I what?”

“Iambic Pentameter, yeah?” 

“I what,” he repeats with a smirk.

“ _Musicians_ ,” she curses with a laugh.  “It’s like, you know when you sing, the words you put emphasis on aren’t like if you were just saying the words conversationally, you emphasize the beat  It’s not that you were performing poorly you were just using the wrong count.”

He can’t help the goofy smile that spreads on his face, she’s trying so hard but he’s not really sure he gets it, he shakes his head.

She tucks her knees under her in the seat.  “Ok like, a five count heart beat right?” she leans forward and taps his chest as she speaks. “da- ** _dum­_** _,_ da- ** _dum_** , da- ** _dum_** , da- ** _dum_** , da- ** _dum_**.”

Can she feel the way his breathing changed when she touched him. “So like this?” He recites a few more lines but he can see from her face he’s not doing it right.

She smiles though.  “Close but a little too severe, more like this,” she settles back on heels and taps her chest on the proper syllable.

It’s hard to pay attention to the _lesson_ she’s giving him, she’s not just pushing the emphasis, she knows this speech by heart and right now she is Hamlet, trying to teach him to be a poor imitation of Hamlet.

“I’m so sorry,” she relaxes mid speech.  “I’m being ridiculous, you’re not auditioning, you’re barely going to perform it, you don’t need me harping on you about little details.”

“It’s ok, you’re passionate, it’s cute, I like it.”

She blushes and frowns.  “This scene is,” she stops.  “Ophelia she thought Hamlet was in love with her and she’s returning things he’d gifted her, the king and her father are trying to get a reaction from him, to test if her ending their flirtation is what made him lose his mind.”

“Uh, huh,” he says.  “He’s just pretending that though, right?” He can’t help but watch the way she presses her lips together when she pauses.  Then he realizes she’s waiting for him to say something.  “So should I, uh start again.”

“Why don’t you start from _fair Ophelia_?” She smiles at him

They start sitting down, her legs tucked beneath her as she leans towards him, and he picks up the timings quickly enough as they start a back and forth, she stops occasionally to offer stage direction or explain where his tone may have been off.  She’s not even using the script she’s clutched in her hand and eventually they’re standing behind the chairs, and she’s abandoned it along with her cardigan.

He notices the tattoo on her forearm for the first time when she reaches out and tucks a stray hair behind his ear while she recites her lines. A crisp black honeycomb pattern broken by a thickly outlined triangle on the outside of her arm.  She stops and encourages him to reach out to her, places in the script where there could be gentle touches or rough gestures.

“Grab me here,” she tells him pointing to a line on the paper.  “Don’t be gentle just” she presses her lips together again and he starts to wonder if she’s nervous or excited, “grab me and just, like you want to shake me, like you just want me to understand and nothing is working.”

“Really, are you sure?” He’s doesn’t want to hurt her she seems so delicate standing in front of him in that outfit.

“He’s somewhere between losing his mind and pretending to, he’s not emotionally stable and he just can’t get her to understand she’s not safe with him,” she says suddenly.  “I think,” again she presses her lips together and this time she glances away from him, “I think he loves her very much but he has to turn her away, he’s about to cause a lot of trouble and he doesn’t want her involved, I think he was relieved that she’d turned away from him and now this interaction, she’s obviously still feeling for him and he just wants to crush that in her.”

“Wow,” Zen has to step back a moment, “that’s really—”

“I’m a huge nerd,” she laughs at him shaking her head, “too much information right?”

“No it’s just,” he laughs.  “I’ve never really met someone so into this.  You really know your shit.”

“I mean I better, I paid a stupid amount of money to know this stuff,” she laughs.

They run the scene a few more times, each time he notices some new subtle way she’s become the character, the way she moves her head a certain way when he speaks, or the twitch of her foot when Ophelia might want to step away.  He takes her by the arms when he’s shouting about the nunnery and her body tenses, he shakes her slightly and doesn’t fail to notice the way she looks away and bites her lip.  She only does _that_ once.

By the time they call it for the night he’s sure that she’ll have marks on her arms from his grip.

“If anyone asks I’ll tell them I had a really exciting date this weekend,” she smirks at him and rubs her arms again before pulling her cardigan back on and then glances away suddenly shy.

She seemed so similar to Elle sometimes; he had to wonder, _no_ , it’s just a coincidence.  They both came into his life at the same time is all.  What did he really know about the woman on the other end of the phone anyway?

“Could you maybe walk me to my car?” She might be blushing.

 _She’s really cute_ , he thinks.  Dressed the way she was he had to wonder, what was she like in her everyday life.  Usually she was nondescript at rehearsals, black leggings, or jogging pants, a loose shit, a face in the crowd.  But in this she was almost deliberately feminine, almost a performance in itself.  “Yeah, sure,” he smiles. 

She stops at the bottom of the stairs and turns in a circle like she’s not sure where she’s going before heading off.  They chat quietly as they walk about nothing in particular and when she rubs her arms obviously cold he finds himself pulling her closer to him and then he stops. 

“Hey here, take my coat.”

“We’re almost to my car it’s ok, you’ll be cold.”

He wraps his coat around her shoulders; she blushes and presses her lips together again.  He can’t help but glance at the way her cleavage when she pulls it tighter around her, _stop it_ , he chastises himself. “Thanks.”

Her car is small, nothing fancy but more than he has and glancing in the windows it’s a mess, it reminds him of Seven’s house.  There are fast food bags and papers all over the floor, energy drink cans and coffee cups. 

She places his coat over his shoulders and presses a kiss to his cheek catching him off guard. She steps back and he sees a smile creep across her face before she covers her mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m just leaving my mark on everyone tonight.  Just a second.”

She opens the door to her car and comes back with a napkin, he laughs while he wipes the lipstick from his cheek, dangerously close to the corner of his mouth. 

“I’m sorry,” she says again with a smile, “I keep forgetting I’m wearing it.”

“It’s fine.”

She reaches out and takes the napkin from him and he watches as she wipes the lipstick off her own lips, a faint stain left behind.  Her lips are full and when she wets them with her tongue he can’t help but wonder what it would be like to kiss her.

 


	12. Day Four: 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for abuse, death mentions, and cancer mentions. It's all in the last section if you want to skip just stop when it starts to be about V.

He’d watched her so intensely all night; it had made her nervous in a very good way.  Every time she worried she was boring him, every time she started to feel like he was going to get fed up with her over explaining, accuse her of treating him like an idiot he would smile, and thank her.  He’d even called her passionate, said she was cute.

It had been so long since anyone had said anything like that to her when she was enthusiastic about a scene that she could have kissed him right there.  She was so used to people who ignored her, told her she was being too picky, her perfectionism was ruining their emersion, destroying their method.  But Zen had smiled and adjusted and after only two hours with her and the script he was reading in the proper metre, albeit stiffly, but he was a quick learner and she had no doubt he would loosen up by next week.

And when he’d grabbed her she’d had to bite her lip to keep from gasping.  Her mind had gone directly to that afternoon on the phone; _you’d see I’m a wolf_.  She had to get control of herself. When she’d joked about him leaving marks on her arms she could have sworn his eyes had gone completely feral for a moment.

She almost forgot to ask him to walk her to her car but then her phone buzzed in her pocket and she didn’t have to look to know it was a text from Seven.  Zen had agreed without hesitation and they’d left so quickly she’d forgotten her coat.

At the bottom of the stairs she turned towards the free parking and was two steps in the wrong direction before she remembered that Seven had insisted she park in the closest garage he could find.  He’d even hacked into the mechanical arm somehow so she could get in without a permit.

She hadn’t even noticed she was rubbing her arms, she was too busy thinking about how she’d have to call Seven to get out of that garage to realize how cold she was when Zen offered her his coat.

“We’re almost to my car,” she says but her teeth chatter and she hopes he doesn’t hear. 

“You’ll be cold.”

He takes his coat off and pulls it around her, it doesn’t escape her notice when he glances at her chest.  Something that would have put her off a few years ago having developed breasts late as a result of antidepressant related weight gain rather than puberty.  There were still days when they made her uncomfortable but those were days she typically chose to wear her binder and right now watching the way his cheeks flame pink as he glances away she doesn’t regret her choice to be femme today.

She does however briefly regret telling him the colour of her bra over the phone.  Had he noticed that when he glanced down her shirt, would the colour of her bra be the thread that unraveled this ruse?  How would she explain that to Seven exactly?

When he leans over to peek in the window of her car she takes the opportunity to drape the coat over his shoulders and press a kiss to his cheek, he straightens quickly and she smiles to herself until she notices the lipstick streak at the corner of his mouth.  She might have meant to leave lipstick on Jumin’s face as a joke but this time she’d honestly forgotten herself.

“I’m just leaving my mark on everyone tonight,” she apologizes and gets a napkin out of her car.  “I totally forgot I was wearing it.”

He carefully wipes the lipstick away, a pink smudge left behind but she doesn’t think anyone will notice. “It’s fine.”

She does notice the way he smiles at her when she takes the napkin from him and folds it over to wipe the lipstick from her own lips, the way he stares at her mouth.  She licks her lips and stuffs the napkin in her pocket. 

If she kissed him right now, she reasoned with herself, it wouldn’t be so bad.  Even if he had feelings for Elle, even if he didn’t know she was Elle, some part of him probably did, _right?_   He could always just enjoy flirting with Elle.  She didn’t really need to wait until the party to _kiss_ him.

She lets out a shaky breath and Zen straightens up from where he’d leaned against her car.  Ten days was not going to kill her.  She reaches in her pocket and presses the button on her car’s remote.  “Thanks for walking me to my car, my brother made me promise,” she lies.

“It’s really not a problem,” he smiles at her putting his coat on properly.

He’s walking away, walking past her, when the toe of her shoe catches in a crack in the asphalt and she stumbles into him.  He catches her as she throws her arms around him to steady herself. 

“You weren’t even talking this time,” he laughs as she clings to him.

“I have to save every ounce of grace I have for the stage,” she tries to laugh but her heart is pounding.

Zen smiles at her as he straightens and waits for her to get her feet under her. He’s not that much taller than she is and she would only have to tilt her head a little to kiss him. Her eyes wander then to his lips and she presses her own together as she plants her feet flat on the ground.

Sure she’s not going to fall again she moves to walk away, mumbling words of thanks but Zen holds her firm, his thumbs brush the tender spots where he had grabbed her over and over again while they had rehearsed her scene. 

His eyes are half lidded when she looks up into them and she watches him wet his lips with his tongue before he presses them against hers.  It’s chaste as far as kisses go but his lips are soft and he trails his fingers along the backs of her arms.  Her lips part as he starts to draw away from her and she pulls him back against her, she draws her tongue along his lower lip and slips her arms inside his coat.

*

He didn’t mean to kiss her.  Well, he did, he definitely kissed her on purpose, but he hadn’t expected the way she grabbed him when he backed off.  The way she’d pulled him against her and opened her mouth for him when he’d had second thoughts, when he’d come to his senses.  He hadn’t been prepared for her arms slipping beneath his jacket, or the feel of her cold fingers tracing his spine through his shirt.

He drops his hands to her sides and traces the curve of her waist with his palms coming to rest at her hips and she presses closer to him, forcing him back against her car.  One of her hands grazes his chest before resting against his cheek and he opens his eyes to find her staring at him, her thumb gently tracing his cheekbone.

Her skirt is longer than he thought, the cotton bunches in his hand as he draws it up to run a hand along her thigh only to find bicycle shorts, and she moans into his mouth as draws her leg up and around him.  Her hand sliding from his cheek to tangle in his ponytail, she gives it a gentle tug and he moans as they come up for air.

He holds her flush against him, his mind races, screaming _what are you doing_ but reveling at the soft sighs dripping from her lips as he peppers kisses down her neck when his phone rings.

And then her phone rings.

*

 _Well this is just weird_ , Luciel frowns at the blurry CCTV, and the two love struck idiots groping one another in a parking garage.  He had half a mind to busy himself and let them play out their weird little fantasy, see if the stalkers waiting on the street got bored and left, but now was not the time for that, and frankly cock blocking Zen was more fun.

He could be mean, send him a text about Elle, let him feel guilty about stringing two people along for a few days until he realized they were the same person.  It was definitely a situation he could see himself taking advantage of, but he didn’t really have the time to enjoy it.

He texts him something generic, something stupid about Jumin, a running gag between the two of them he doesn’t even have to think about, and pulls up Elle’s number.

He watches the two of them almost leap apart and he can hear Elle apologising, “—my brother, he worries, I have to take this.”

“You know just because I have red hair doesn’t mean we’re related,” he laughs.  He watches them on the monitor, keeping distance from one another, Elle with their head down waves to Zen as he walks away.

“I really hate you right now,” they mumble.

Luciel snorts.  “Yeah I can respect that.” He watches Zen walk past the stalkers and slip off camera.

“I guess that was you on his phone too?”

“Bingo-bango, you get a prize!  Do you have cookies in your car, you can eat one, no guilt, no calories for prize cookies.”

“Seven,” there’s a warning in their voice.

“Sorry, sorry,” he chuckles, “you made me watch that though, with my own two eyes.  Do you know how many sins there are between the three of us now?  I’m going to have to pray tonight, pray a lot, I don’t have time to pray that much.  Some of us have deadlines.”

“Seven!”

“Fine, _fine_ , you need to go ho— to the apartment, you talked me into this, I’m a reasonable man but you can’t be out all night _canoodling_ , please go home, _let me rest_.”

“I’m getting in my car right now, but we both know you’re not going to rest,” Elle grumbles.

“I’m offended.”

“You’re not, not even a little”

“I am a little,” he declares.

He can hear the way the ambient noise changes as her phone begins to feed through the car and he listens to the whine of the engine as her car starts to move.

“I know there’s something going on,” Elle says quietly. 

“When you’re inside clean the cameras you assaulted, do it before you do anything else.  I’ll call you when you’re done.”

“I need to take Darryl out,” their usual challenging tone missing.  It’s just a statement, they have to take their dog out, of course they do, but V still hasn’t returned a single call and the text responses were definitely not coming from a phone, or at the very least not and of V’s phones.

“There’s a light right outside the building, a security camera can see the entire illuminated area, so don’t leave it, and if you see someone inside the security doors try to talk to them, see if they’ll stay with you until you can go back inside.”

“Seven” their voice is small, “exactly how worried should I be?”

 _I don’t know_ , he thinks, _a lot._   “Oh not really,” is what he tells her, “I’m just being cautious.”

*

She’d called for him by noon, demanded that he eat with her and then refused to let him eat.  He didn’t mind, she laughed when the empty plate was set before him and he was glad for the sound of it.  Even Saeren’s smile had warmed him.  He’d failed them both, failed Jumin, and Luciel, he would take his lumps.

She’d sent him to the doctor that morning, one of the faithful who lived outside Magenta, allowed so to keep them well stocked with the drugs Rika used both recreationally and to control her followers.  Three of her disciples had gone with him and he’d been told not to answer his phone regardless of who called.

He’d been given instructions though, to tell the RFA through the messenger that their party would be held in a week, and in the back of the nondescript car he did as he’d been told. 

Elle had been distant in her responses but Yoosung had been furious.  She’d jumped between them immediately and he was glad that there was someone to be there for Yoosung.  It was hard to watch him unravel without Rika.

The doctor had taken him into a small office and told him all the things he’d heard over and over again. Cancer, there was nothing they could do, especially without the Savior’s permission.  He flicked through what V could only assume were his most recent x-rays and blood tests, had him do breathing tests and when they were done he handed an envelope to the disciples and off they went.

He’d ignored calls from Jumin and Luciel, even one from Hyun.  There were so many texts, he didn’t even look at them anymore, he was rarely allowed to respond to them.

 _Sooner rather than later_ , that’s what the doctor had told him.  It seemed at odds with how he felt.  He sits across from her at the table and runs his fingers around the outside of the empty plate.  The meal had been over for hours but she had not given him permission to leave. 

Breathing had been easier lately, he had bad days but perhaps that just meant he was racing towards the finish.  Hadn’t he read once that the terminally ill can sometimes feel as though they’re better in the days leading up to their death.

He must have smiled, must have let his mind stray.  The plate is pulled from his hands and he feels it impact with the table, the pieces scattering out against his hands. 

“You’re supposed to be _suffering_ ,” she shrieks.  “I thought you wanted me happy, you promised!  You _promised me_!”

“He’s a liar,” Saeren interjects, and he can see the slow blur of movement in the dim light that has to be Saeren moving to her side.

“He promised _me_ ,” she shouts and grabs him by the hair forcing him to face her, “you promised to suffer for me,” she hisses.

“I do,” he says softly. 

“You’re a liar,” she spits on him.  “You’re smiling, you’re going to die before I tell you to, _you don’t love me_.”

“I do,” his heart sinks and he does his best to kneel at her feet.  “I was only glad to hear you seem so happy.

She laughs, and grabs another handful of his hair, forcing his head back so he can stare into her smiling face, her lips curled up in a sweet smile the only thing he can focus on. “That’s good,” she coos.  “That’s so good, I have another job for you.”


	13. Day Four: 4

She had to put the kiss to the back of her mind. She didn’t _want_ to, she wanted to fixate on it, she wanted to find his fan site and google his address and, _oh god do not become that person Noelle_.  But then there was whatever had Seven so spooked.

She’d gotten the impression that he was high strung but he didn’t seem prone to exaggerating when it came to member safety.  For all his jokes he seemed to take this seriously and she doubted he’d have waited this long to ask her to clean the camera’s she’d smeared grease on without reason.

The way he’d asked her to see if someone would go with her to walk her dog, she tried her best not to worry.  Her mind drifted back and forth between the kiss, and the mysterious danger.  She grabs a bag, clips the leash on Darryl, pulls a hoodie over her cardigan and slips on a pair of boots.  The elevator is empty this time of night and so are the halls.

She sighs, _you’ve got a big fucking dog_ , she tells herself as she steps into the light Seven had told her to stay in.  “Come on buddy,” she says through her teeth.  “If you want privacy you’re gonna have to learn to use the toilet.”

Darryl wags his tail and lets out a quiet _boof_.

It’s not long before he does a few circles and stares at her until she turns her back to him. “Fine,” she mumbles, “as long as you know I’m not joking about the toilet.

*

Luciel watches Elle take the dog out right away.  He watches them stand with their back to the CCTV bouncing on their toes to stay warm, they make eye contact with the camera when they turn around and he swears they give a subtle finger gun at him.

They change as soon as they’re back in the apartment, loose t-shirt coming into view in the first camera they clean, stepping back, bicycle shorts come into view.  Face washed free of makeup and hair loose he watches Elle move to the other. It doesn’t take long before the three smeared camera’s are clear and focused.

He watches Elle curl up on the couch, the big dog they call Darryl climbs up behind them and rests his head on their legs.  He can see them enter the messenger and he opens his own chat, lurking to monitor the conversation.  He’s a little surprised to see V enter the conversation but he watches the way Elle reacts, both in the chat and on the camera.

Their posture changes immediately, they sat up cross legged on the couch, and they frowned.  They deliberately ask questions they know the answer to.  He lets the chat play out before he calls.  Keeping careful attention on how V responds, but he seems oblivious.

It’s obvious to Luciel that Elle, _or Noelle_ , is clearly testing V, and he did not pass.  V is oblivious and Luciel feels like he is in the dark, a feeling becoming uncomfortably familiar in the last 4 days.  Elle makes eye contact with the nearest camera but doesn’t answer their phone.  He watches them put their phone on the table in front of them and walk into the kitchen.  He watches them across the screens, they rummage through cupboards and when the phone stops ringing they turn to the nearest camera and make an _again_ gesture.

He redials and watches them carry an armload of junk food and what looks like a pint can of beer back to the couch with them.  They crack the beer and answer the phone.

“The nerve of some people,” he laughs into the phone, “telling me I need to eat better, look at you.”

“So the real danger was my shitty eating habits all along?”

“Ugh,” he groans into the phone, “you’re just going to call me out like this.”

“Jihyun has no idea I’m here does he?”

There it is again, the way Elle says Vs real name.  Like there’s something he’s missed.  He hadn’t described Elle to V, he’s not even sure how much he told him, V hadn’t asked for much.  He trusted Luciel’s information, trusted his judgement, but even if Luciel ignored whatever Elle was implying V should have realized he knew them by now.

The bigger question was why hadn’t Luciel found any connection between them.

“Seven,” Elle was still waiting.

“I don’t-  I uh-  I don’t know,” he admits.  “Jesus this is fucking stupid but I hadn’t even considered that you _knew him_ , knew him, I mean I guess because of Jumin but—”

There’s a snort from the other end of the line.  “I thought you were a hacker god, come on man.”

“I _know_ ,” he groans.  “This is just the tip of the fucked up iceberg Elle.”

“Noelle,” they correct. “call me Noelle ok?  Elle was just me trying to be anonymous, this seems kind of personal, you should call me by my name.”

“Noelle, there’s something weird going on here.”

“Yeah,” they laugh.  “I mean it started out weird so stands to reason.”

“Stop,” he snaps and then takes a breath.  “Stop taking this so well, ok.  It’s fucked up you should be pissed.”

“Seven, I’m freaked out but I trust you.  You’re a weird fucking gremlin of a man but, I don’t know, you seem to be the only person taking this seriously so just tell me what’s going on.”

 _Trust_ , “Don’t,” he starts but changes his mind.  “Ok, that’s a terrible choice but we’ll run with it.  I’m still working on tracking whoever led you to us but you have a tail.”

“A tail?”

“Two people, men I think, and a third they feed info to.  I can’t tell if they’re waiting for you when you leave the apartment or if they already know where you’re going.”

“That’s why you want me back here then?”

“I’m already set up to monitor this entire building, and I have, well there are backups in place.”

“Why are they watching me?  I mean even if I’m some kind of bait wouldn’t they be more interested in this place, whatever you have hidden in here?”

“ _I don’t know_ ,” he groans.  “I would have thought that the information in the apartment would be what they wanted.  But you’re more than bait or they wouldn’t watch you so closely.   Besides your record is cleaner than almost every single member of the RFA.”

“So do you think it’s Jihyun or Jumin then?”

“ _That,_ ” he snaps again.  “What do you have to do with V?”

He’s been searching, the whole time he talks to her, talking around in circles trying to find something, some connection, he’s missed even just a photo of Noelle and V.  Of course V and Jumin have been friends since they were kids, V would _know_ Noelle but if they’re close enough that Noelle expects they could be bait for V, why can’t he find a single thing.  The harder he looks the clearer it is that the information has been removed.

Noelle doesn’t answer him.  He watches them on the monitor, they put the phone down and drag their hands down their face, rub at their eyes and stare directly into the camera and pick up the phone. 

“Me too,” he sighs.  “Yeah.”

A snort.

“It’s like it’s all gone,” he says softly.  “The deeper I dig the farther away I get.”

“Is it,” Noelle inhales, “you did a thing, the old articles about Jumin and I are gone, did that, _I don’t know_.”

He stops for a minute and changes direction, the worm he released definitely did not do what Noelle thinks, but that doesn’t mean that someone else, someone with similar tactics to his, like the someone who hacked into his social app.

“Noelle, I have an idea but while I try this can you maybe tell me why someone might use you against V?”

“I mean,” there’s a stutter.  “I, it’s not that I think they would, it’s just,” Noelle sighs.  “I mean who else right?  It has to be either Jumin or Jihyun.  I haven’t talked to Jihyun since my father drug me out of his house when I was 17.”

Luciel stops typing. “What?”

“He was my boyfriend,” she almost whispers, “for like three years, so when the old man told me my father was coming I went to the Kim’s and I didn’t come home, and I didn’t tell him why, and then my my father showed up.  I mean I could tell them embarrassing stories about him but he never tried to contact me after that, not even when,” she trails off.

“When you tried to kill yourself,” he finishes for them.

“Yeah that.”

*

Noelle draws her knees up to her chest on the couch and lets herself slow fall sideways.  Why would anyone think she would be good bait for Jihyun.  Jumin would have made sense, you didn’t need Seven’s resources to find out they were close despite the distance they kept each other at. Anyone at C&R with too much time on their hands and access to her records could have found enough to connect them, and if she was being followed, they’d have even more.

But someone had gone through enough trouble to remove any evidence that she’d known Jihyun as more than Jumin’s best friend.  She hated trying to put into words what she was to him.  All she wanted to say was nothing.

_She was still in bed, still in his bed, in his tshirt.  Plush blankets pulled up to her chin.  He’d tucked them in tight around her when he got up and they’d laughed.  She hadn’t told him that she was leaving, hadn’t told him that her father was taking her away.  He knew about the rumors, told her they were stupid, they’d blow over._

_She wanted to believe him, tucked tight in his bed, watching him at his computer working on photos he’d taken the night before.  He leans back in his chair and brushes his blue hair out of his face._

_“Every photo of you is too perfect to adjust,” he laughs and moves to the next one._

_She blushes and hides her face, it was a joke.  Something he’d said since the first time she’d accidentally stepped into frame, before they were even a thing.  “Even if it’s just your toe, I’ll keep it forever.”_

_His parents were out again, maybe if they’d have come home it would have gone differently, Mrs. Kim always stood up to her father but if the Chief couldn’t do anything what could the Kim’s have really done.  Her phone had rung too late, she was still untangling herself from the nest he’d made her when the house had shaken with the force of the slamming door._

_“That’s not right,” Jihyun had frowned at her.  But her heart was already sinking and she was tripping over herself looking for her pants._

_“Noelle, are you ok?”_

_She was grabbing her phone, throwing the blankets on the bed.  There was someone walking heavily up the stairs when Jihyun stood up._

_Jumin was yelling when she answered the phone, arguing with his father, she could hear her mother in the background._

_“What are you doing?” Jihyun asked her._

_She didn’t answer; she’d abandoned the search for her pants and was pushing the screen out of his window.  She wasn’t going to go, he couldn’t take her, she was 17, she wouldn’t go with him, and she wouldn’t go back to being a thing, to being a product he could sell.  No one could make her do that._

_She would run away._

_Jihyun grabs her by the hand, she’s almost out the window, the roof of the patio is right below her, it’s only a foot or two below her feet but the door to his room clatters against her guitar and her father’s quiet voice simmers behind her._

_In her memories the voice is booming, all encompassing but she knows it was always cool and collected regardless of the things he said._

_“Jihyun, let go of me!” she shouts trying to pull out of the window._

_“Where are you going?”  She doesn’t remember who asked_

_Then he lets go and she feels her toes touch the roof and she tastes freedom for half a second before she’s yanked upwards.  Her father doesn’t speak while he forces her back inside her boyfriend’s room and when she makes one last ditch effort to make herself too big to come back through the bedroom window he drops one hand._

_She struggles harder then thrashing and screaming, trying to make him lose his grip, drop her, but it only takes a second for him to bring his palm crashing down against her cheek._

_No one comes to her rescue, no Jumin in a rage, no Jihyun with that dangerous look, not Mrs. Kim, or the Old Man.  She doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want to be that girl anymore but who else is left?  She doesn’t remember what her father said when she was standing on the floor in Jihyun’s room._

_Jihyun is sitting in his desk chair, it’s slightly askew, more in front of the closet than his desk and he looks shaken, watching her climb through the window.  “What did you do to him,” she whispers._

_She doesn’t remember what he said._

_She remembers what she said._

_“Please,” she begs.  “Don’t make me,” she sobs.  “Please,” she cries finding Jihyun’s eyes, “please.”_

_Another hand crashing against her face, she knows it’s coming this time, she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t drop eye contact with Jihyun and he stands up then.  “Don’t take her,” he says but his eyes lack the conviction she’d seen when Jumin got into fights._

_Her father scowls and she can feel blood pooling in the corner of her mouth._

_“Please,” she begs._

“Noelle,” Seven practically shouts her out of her memories.

“Sorry, what?”

“Is there more just an old boyfriend?  He’s never mentioned you,” he clears his throat,” I mean I’m sorry but if you were someone who could be used against him,” he trails off.

“I’m as confused as you are,” she admits.  “Jumin has been trying to convince me to call him for the last few years, he never speaks to me when he’s in the office, and as far as I know he never tried to call me.”

She can hear typing on the other end of the line, furious, purposeful typing. “Can you think of anything?”

“He wasn’t anyone then,” she says.  “Just a rich kid, he got his first real camera the year we started dating, his parents where rarely home, his sister was away at school.  Jumin and I spent a lot of time there because there were no adults.  He was weird and sweet and he always had my back, always had Jumin’s back, the three of us were inseparable.”

“What about something, I don’t know personal?”

“I don’t know, we were teenagers,” she groans, “he had a nice car, he liked to drive then, we fucked in it when we couldn’t get rid of Jumin.”

Seven snorts.  “Ok, too personal.”

“I don’t know what you want, you know what he’s like.  Probably.”

“I _do_ ,” he says and she can hear the wheels turning.

“He probably thinks that after everything letting me go was better.”

There’s no response, just typing on the other end of the line.

“What did you tell him about me?”

“Not much, he didn’t ask, just the important stuff.”

“What qualifies as important?”

“Were you suspect, were you safe, was there anything in your background check?  Just security stuff.”

“You think he’s involved don’t you,” she says softly.

He doesn’t answer at first and she hears the typing end. “I don’t know, I was starting to think so but then, wouldn’t he know about you?”

“If he is involved, the missing information about us _is suspect_ though isn’t it?  That would make us look like we’re working on it together.”

“That is one theory,” Seven agrees.  “You are definitely suspect, but you’ve been upfront, I mean I’m not ruling it out, I’m not putting all my trust in you,” the typing starts again.  “The other option is that V is up to _something_ with someone, and whatever it is, they have him in the dark.

“Can he see the security feed for the apartment?”

“Not, uh, not exactly,” Seven stutters.

“Can you get him to,” she stops, “can you show him something, something that identifies me?  I don’t know like get him to realize who I am without exactly telling him it’s me?”

“Yeah,” he says softly.  “Yeah I think, yeah, that will work.”


	14. Day Five: 1

Jaehee had never been particularly concerned with Mr. Han’s private life but even she had to admit a certain curiosity when it came to Ms. Lee in the art department.  She’s started at C&R in the aftermath of Noelle’s employment, and endured a few uncomfortable meetings between father and son.

It hadn’t been hard to understand the harsh filter with which Mr. Chairman assessed Noelle.  She was at odds with the men above her in the art department almost constantly.  She never backed down and she did not curb her language.  Mr. Han was always quick to remind his father that should they reprimand or end her contract those men would have to be held the same standards.

In disciplinary meetings there was always and air of camaraderie, Ms. Lee was never cautious of Mr. Han, she would inquire about his father, she would almost proudly agree that she had said or done whatever she was accused of, or she would provide whatever evidence required to clear herself of the claims or shrug and accept her lumps.

Mr. Han had been contradictory in his requests regarding Ms. Lee, from the start.  He had at once insisted that she not use the internet to inquire about her and in the same breath informed his new assistant that Ms. Lee would be moving into her building and could she please _look out_ for her.

Jaehee had to admit, Noelle’s ability to curve the rules in her favor was admirable, if not oddly reminiscent of her Boss.  So it hadn’t been difficult to acquaint herself with Noelle outside of the office.  They would travel together occasionally, meet in one or the other’s apartment for coffee every once in a while.  She had gone to see Noelle skate shortly before she’d taken a break and she was aware that Noelle was an actor, though until Jumin had mentioned it Friday morning she hadn’t considered that Noelle may know Zen.

But now Mr. Han stood in front of her with _that cat_ asking her if she knew why Ms. Lee wasn’t home.

“I have no earthly idea Mr. Han.  She has been skating this morning, her friend posted a photo of her, and perhaps they have plans for the day.”

He scowls at her. “I know what she says she’s doing,” he snaps. 

“I have not spoken to her today, I can let her know you’re looking for her if I see her.”

Mr. Han mumbles something about her being _well aware_ that he is looking for her, before he moves on to the state of her apartment, moving some things from the lower shelves and tucking cables behind things.  He bids a fond farewell to his cat and leaves.

She doesn’t even really mean to, doesn’t realize she’s doing it until the page is loading.

_Jumin Han + Noelle Lee_

She considers that she could simply phone Noelle and ask her.  She’d never brought up Jumin beyond the urge to pummel him on her behalf.  Perhaps she assumed being Mr. Han’s Chief Assistant meant she was already privy to whatever secret history they had.

There are very few hits, mostly C&R staff pages.  She considers it could be easier to ask Luciel, but then she would have to listen to him.  It did not seem worth the trouble.  She clicked through the search results until one head line caught her eye.  She clicks and scans the article.

At first she thinks it may be off, something only catching one part of the filter.  The article claims that Noelle, the daughter of a CEO of a failing business had attempted suicide overseas and was now stable in hospital, it mentions her attempt being only a year after mother’s own suicide. 

Jaehee chews on her lip, she should have just closed the window.  The picture attached however is of Noelle, and woman who could only be her mother, a young Jumin and Mr. Chairman.  They look like a happy family.  There are quotes from Jumin and his father, Jumin calls her his sister.

They would have been maybe 20.

She wonders what Noelle must have gone through, and then to have it broadcast worldwide.  She knew Noelle had issue with her father, she wants to call her friend, tell her she loves her, tell her about her own mother’s death but she stops herself.  This felt like an invasion of privacy.  She should not have looked this up.  She should have left it alone.

Still, something about Noelle had been bothering Mr. Han, and now Jaehee was going to worry.

*

Saeren didn’t like this.  It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in Savior, it was the man, that liar they called V.  Saeren felt most comfortable when Savior left V to him but Luciel’s special security was proving more of a challenge than he’d expected.  Savior had demanded that he stop splitting his attention and he’d recommended four men he trusted, she’d sent _one_ of them with V.

The men he had on surveillance warned him that _the bait_ might be on to them.  It didn’t matter, it was inevitable. His brother was not stupid he was always going to notice them.  It didn’t stop him from tuning them in.

He pulls up the apartment’s CCTV, it had been the easiest piece of the puzzle to exploit, he could have simply used the access Luciel had built in for V but hacking into it felt better.  He didn’t understand this person.  A month ago Savior had given him a name, and when he’d brought her everything he could she had instructed him to wipe any records of this person with the man they called V.

He’d been disappointed, he’d hoped that this was a last straw that savior would finally make good on her promise to kill him but he’d done what he was told.  He’d kept them under surveillance, watching them interact with the RFA members for weeks before Savior had sent him to _audition_ them.

It had been _beautiful_ to watch them unravel on stage, the look in their eye when they were singled out, the way the people around them had abandoned them, the way they’d maintained their pride through resignation only to crumble.  And Zen, the pretty boy RFA, had stood there the whole time, fist clenched but he hadn’t said a thing, in the end he’d followed orders too.

Saeren flips through the packet he’d received, it looked like Zen and _No Kira_ had something going, was he some kind of cupid?  He snorts.  That would just make this all the sweeter, with every thread he stripped from Noelle, he could watch them both unravel in front of him

 


	15. Day Five: 2

She looked like hell. She didn’t usually drink a lot, but last night, 2 beer had turned into 4 and she was pretty sure there was an open bottle of wine on the counter, she didn’t even remember bringing that much with her yet here she stands, light weight that she is, hung over at work.

The suffering was made marginally less when she’d presented the department head with an animation test and a full storyboard draft. 

“Where did you get your resources, where are the model fees, how much did this cost us?” he demanded.

She smirked behind her extra large coffee and sunglasses. “Didn’t cost you anything but overtime, I thought I got this project for this reason?” 

“Who are these free models then? Maybe we have more work for them.”

Noelle snorts. “Not fucking likely. I didn’t say they were free, I said they didn’t cost the company anything.”

“Where are your sources?”

“Sorry that’s part of my deal with my model. They’re mine; I hold the rights on them.”

“I’m going to have to speak to the Director, again, Ms. Lee,” he warns.

“Good fucking luck, it was his idea.”

“I’m sorry?”

“No you’re not,” she grunts. “I had to let the boss know that his personal projects were on hold, he suggested I use my contacts for this project rather than sourcing our own  
models to keep the cost down. So yeah I’m going to keep the photo’s I took of Olympic level athletes who are modeling in return for every ounce of my spare time.”

“One day you won’t have Mr. Han to hide behind.”

“Tsk,” she curls a lip and looks at him over her sunglasses, “I haven’t hid behind Jumin Han since I was 15 years old, I don’t plan to start now. You might want to keep your eyes on your own papers though.”

He’s still talking at her back when she walks away and Noelle is certain she will hear from Jumin or his father’s assistant at some point during the day but she finds her little artists alcove, and groans at the mess her table is. Motherfucker, she thinks chugging the rest of her coffee.

“Jesus Lee, do you even breathe?” A curly mop of hair calls from the table pushed up against her.

“Not if I can help it.” Noelle starts to sort through the piles of things left for her. “Please tell me someone confused my usual mess for a dumpster and I can just sweep this all into the garbage, please tell me everything I’ve been working on in the last two months didn’t all get back to me the one Friday I leave early.”

“You sound like you might cry.”

“I feel like I might,” she laughs. “I bet that geriatric bastard called in reminders when I booked it Friday. That’s cool,” she starts to sort through the files and boards on her drafting table, “I didn’t leave to work on the new project he saddled me with or anything.”

The man across from her snorts and she pops her head phones in. It takes her two more coffees and the better part of an hour just to sort out the mess and another half hour to cross reference each one with an email. It’s Jaehee that finds her in the dark in the quiet room. 

“Do you really come in here to nap?” Jaehee asks.

“I mean, I don’t, but some people do,” Noelle makes an attempt to smile but she ends up looking pitiful.

“Mr. Han has left for the Cherry Farm this morning,” Jaehee starts.

“You’re having a sleep over with his wife then?”

Jaehee snorts and nods but doesn’t miss a beat. “You do have to consider how you speak to the people above you Ms. Lee.”

“I consider is pretty carefully,” Noelle smirks. Jaehee is already reaching into her pocket and pressing a couple edvil into Noelle’s hand. “I could have told him that the big man  
wants to give me his job, I could have called him a number of colourful names. If he wants me to stop swearing he’s got about 15 other people worse than me I don’t see getting called into the Director’s office.”

Jaehee sits in the chair next to her. “That is what Mr. Han has told me to tell him, but we do always have to discuss the situation with you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Noelle swallows the pills in her hand with another coffee and presses her forehead to the table top.

“Mr. Han seems to be worried about you,” Jaehee starts.

“Jumin isn’t worried about me so much as he thinks I’m hiding something.”

“This might not be my place to ask—”

“You googled us.”

Jaehee blushes. “Mr. Han asked me not to and I’ve complied up until now, but the last few days his attitude towards you has bordered on fixation and curiosity got the better of me.”

“Hey what’s a google search between friends right? At least you gave it a few years.” Noelle wonders if this slip in protocol happened before or after Seven released his worm  
Jaehee smiles a little. “It’s simply, now that I’ve, well knowing that you and Mr. Han were so close in your youth and that you had trouble a few years ago—”

“Wait what?” Noelle’s head pops up and she frowns. “trouble?”

“It’s only that Mr. Han may be concerned that you’re unhappy again, and you haven’t been home.”

Noelle laughs. “Jaehee, I’m not depressed, and I’m not in a bad place. I take my meds, I see the therapist Jumin found for me and he is well aware that I do.”

“Oh.”

“Do you have sibling’s Jaehee?”

“I was an only child.”

“Me too, until I was 15 and we moved in with the Hans. It was only a few years but Jumin never really got out of the habit of being my big brother. If he asks can you do me a favor and tell him that I came home today? When’s he coming back? I was home the whole time he was gone.”

Jaehee laughs. “He won’t believe me, that’s too convenient.”

“Yeah but if you take my side he’ll leave you alone about me.”

*

He kissed No. 

He kissed someone from rehearsals. 

He kissed her in a fucking parking lot.

Then he came home and he talked to Elle on the phone, texted her, chatted with her, like he hadn’t just kissed another woman. Who was he becoming? He’d only known both  
these women for a few days, he hasn’t even met Elle.

Still it had seemed like Elle had been bolder when he’d talked to her, could she have been emboldened by their brief attempt at something a little dirty or— no, he had to stop going down this line of thought. The chance of No and Elle being the same person? Why wouldn’t she have told him? He had to stop torturing himself.

He has to get himself in check, he has another meeting today with his agent, and he can’t be mooning over a kiss that should never have happened. He needs to forget No. Or back off from Elle, she seemed to get along well with Seven and god knows he could probably use a girlfriend. It was a curse, being as handsome as he was, maybe he should tell  
Elle about No. Maybe she’d just laugh, the way she does sometimes, and be happy for him and he’d know she was just flirting.

It doesn’t matter the whole time he’s running he can’t help but remember the way No felt pressed against him, the way her lips felt against his, the way her leg felt wrapped around him. Fuck get ahold of yourself Hyun. Still when he closes his eyes he sees red hair spread across his pillow and he doesn’t know anymore if it’s Elle he’s imagining or No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a regularly scheduled update on thursday as I found all my Lost Boy files!


	16. Day Five: 3

_Ok, that’s really cute_. Noelle is still at work, the edvil Jaehee had given her had kicked in, along with her fifth coffee and she was standing at her drafting table churning out sketch after sketch for the Tiaranol and Bic accounts. Her headphones were on and she was practically dancing at her desk every time she had to wait for an email response.

She’d managed to keep up with the chats of the day too. Laughing when Zen admitted he was visiting the chatroom more just to talk to her. The more she talked to him the more she wondered about him. He had seemed aloof before and she hadn’t thought much about him in the past.  When they worked together she’d always taken him for the pretty boy, no one could watch him perform and not see that he was dedicated and talented but it had seemed to come so easy she’d never considered that he could be as insecure as he was starting to seem.

She had written him off as a shallow narcissist, but it had only been four days and she could see there was so much more to him, he cared so deeply and worried so much. She shouldn’t have kissed him last night. All things considered he had made the first move but when he didn’t commit she should have let him walk away, she should have waited until Seven said she could tell him who she was.

And then he had called her. She couldn’t leave her desk so she’d been quiet, not as talkative as usual but he had been chatty enough for both of them. She’d felt guilty, he was over compensating because he thought he’d kissed someone else, she figured. Then he’d told her about being young, pretending to be a knight on stage after closing.

And it had been _so cute_.

The way he laughed nervously and told her he wasn’t embarrassed about it. She’d covered her face though, blushing with second hand embarrassment, letting out a laugh that was almost a giggle. The Fluff and glasses across from her had looked up.

“I’m really busy at work,” she whispers into the phone while her work friend raises an eyebrow at her.

“I’m so sorry, Babe,” he says suddenly. “I was on my way to a meeting I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No,” she looks away from the face across from her but she can’t hide the stupid grin on her face, “you’re not bothering me, I like listening to you.”

He’s quiet for a minute. “Babe—”

“Shh, people are already looking at me, I have to go.”

“I’ll call you later ok? But you have to hang up first.”

“Yeah,” she laughs, “alright ok, bye.”

She doesn’t make eye contact with him “Stop smiling at me, Gwon.”

“Come on Lee, I live vicariously through you, give me something.”

“Gross.”

“Come on, who are you seeing?”

“It’s none of your business, and we’re not seeing each other.”

“Don’t lie to me Lee, you were blushing.”

“He’s just a friend, who is very pretty and doesn’t know how to talk without flirting.”

“Fine, don’t tell me,” he pushed his hair out of his face and adjusted his glasses. “I _thought_ we were friends.”

*

Luciel watches the chatroom, and snorts, _did Jumin just try to get Zen to model for catfood_? He’s supposed to be working and he is, albeit distractedly. He can’t leave Noelle for too long now, their tail seems to know they’ve been made and the guy they report to didn’t seem happy.

It’s been harder for him to pick them out since this morning. Doubly hard with Vanderwood breathing down his neck. Not to mention that he was still looking for some kind of connection between Noelle and V.

“You’re still stalking that Lee girl?” Vanderwood whisper’s in his ear.

“Mother bitch,” he grunts and minimizes the window.

“Don’t let me interrupt your infatuation, but I shouldn’t have to remind you that you have work to do.”

“I’m doing it, god are your panties too small? You seem tense.”

“If you use that word again I will taser you,” Vanderwood shoves his chair into the desk but Luciel just laughs.

“Your foreplay needs a little work, I mean I am definitely into that but you gotta give a guy a little warning.”

Vanderwood makes a disgusted noise. “Listen 707, you get back on task and I can get you some pictures of your stalker bait, I’ll get you into the file. Just, fucking, get this done.”

“Really?” This was a new softer side of Vanderwood. A little concerning considering they thought he was stalking Noelle but he wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth. Vanderwood hadn’t tried to motivate him with more than threats of violence since he was in school.

Work is easier to focus on knowing he will have access to Noelle’s file. He hopes that the connection to the agency will explain the things he can't find. He has a sinking feeling that it won’t, but he hopes.

He was caught up just before noon. It hadn’t been difficult, he was only behind because of Noelle, well Noelle and the fact that procrastination seemed like the most effective way to _really_ torment Vanderwood. Vanderwood kept their word and it didn’t take long for him to have access to everything the agency had done for Noelle’s father.

Including some photos that featured a side of V that Luciel hoped not to ever see again.

“Hey, Mrs. Vanderwood, how’d you get me this anyway?”

“Some hacker released a worm that took out our program keeping the rumors about the Lee kid and the Han kid going around. It managed to delete some of the images in that file, told them you were looking into it, to see if we needed to worry about anything.”

Luciel barks out a laugh.

“Yeah,” Vanderwood shakes their head, “thought as much. I’ll give you some alone time with that file, there’s nothing to eat in this house but those chips and something in the back of your fridge that I think might have become sentient.”

“That’s Francis,” Luciel says with a lopsided grin.

“More the reason not to eat him.”

“Her.”

Vanderwood is gone in minutes and Luciel is already calling Noelle.

“So funny story,” he starts before she can even say hello, “Remember how you definitely told me more about V than I needed to know last night?”

“Could you give me like 3 minutes before you get weird?”

“Listen I thought hearing _that_ was weird, but I have surveillance photo’s in front of me illustrating your anecdote and let me tell you—”

“What? You have what?”

“So that’s the funny part, did you know that the photo’s your Dad used to get custody of you were provided by my employer?”

“Your _employer_?”

“I had nothing to do with it, I swear, but I got access to your file and I’ve got surveillance notes and photos and well, it’s not the shit that’s missing but it’s something, it at least confirms what you’ve been saying. Gives me more direction.”

“But what if Jihyun is just a red herring? What if that’s why I’m the bait?”

“So I focus on you instead of everything else?” Luciel laughs. “It’s defiantly a possibility but I won’t let myself get tunnel vision,’ he tries to assure them.

“Well if that’s the case then do you have any leads on whoever sent me to the apartment?”

“Actually,” he laughs, “you thought you caught me but I have some leads I’m running. I think I know where they are, I’m still verifying some things though.”

“And I’m safe?”

“As safe as you were yesterday.”

“So no?”

“Just let me know where you’re going, I can keep an eye on you most places.”

Noelle laughs. “That’s both comforting and unsettling you know?”

*

He wasn’t thinking about No anymore, he wasn’t even thinking about Elle in this moment. He’d expected another meeting with the modeling agency, or the romance writers, not this. Not another part, in a huge production. This could be _it_ , for him. Echo Girl was huge, this role was huge.

He’s been alternating between smiling like an idiot and crippling anxiety since he walked out of the meeting with his agent. What if he can’t pull it off. What if it’s too much too fast and he lets everyone down. What if there’s no chemistry between he and Echo Girl.

Did he get the part for his talent or his face?

He’s worked so hard, but he’d been in a 2 year dry spell, small parts spread out. If he was more than just a pretty face, if he was more than eye candy shouldn’t he have gotten farther by now? His thoughts drift to No, not to the kiss for once today but to the way she looked rehearsing. She’d said she’d gone to school for it, but he could see on her face the way she became her characters.

Did people see that passion in him when he preformed? Should have he accepted Jumin’s offer? No wasn’t even on stage yet, hadn’t even auditioned and she was Ophelia. She was demonstrating meter to him and she was Hamlet. Did anyone look at him without seeing Hyun first and his character second? He hoped they did, he hoped he could pull this off.

He paces around his apartment for the rest of the day. He should go celebrate, or go to rehearsal. The RFA had been so happy for him. Elle had offered him congratulations and kind words of encouragement but he wanted to tell someone in person.

He wanted to tell No, maybe she’d help him learn his lines, maybe whatever she did would rub off on him. Maybe there was some acting school trick she could teach him. He even goes all the way to the rehearsal space but he can’t make himself go in.

He can see her coat on a hanger from the door and he remembers her arms slipping inside his coat and he has to turn away. He has to figure himself out. He can’t ask her to _what,_ to tutor him? Was he a child. She’d laugh at him. Not that she would be mean about it but. She couldn’t be his Elle proxy. She hadn’t made plans to meet him tonight to rehearse and she _knew_ those lines, she’d be fine. Even if he read poorly with her the director would have to be an idiot not to cast her.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and makes his way to a coffee shop nearby.

*

V was suspicious. He was always suspicious in Mint Eye, but Rika had sent him away. Sent him away with guard dogs but still he had access to his phone, to the internet. Not that it was easy to check his texts, headphones were not exactly inconspicuous, and neither was text to speech.

He preferred Saeren’s insults and sullen silences to the prattle of the men he’d been sent with.

“You took these pictures huh?” The smaller man mumbled, it was the seventeenth time today he’d said it.

V preferred the repetitive question to the other man. “So you see this Honey Pot savior has in your RFA?”

“I know a little about her but, no I haven’t _seen_ her,” truth be told he hadn’t asked Luciel much about this Ellie woman. He didn’t want to know, he wanted to be as separate from Rika’s plan for the RFA as he could possibly be. He hoped she would give him his death before he had to watch her do to Jumin, Yoosung, and Hyun what she’d done to Saeren. Hoped he didn’t have to see her let Saeren kill his brother.

“I suppose _you_ havent’t,” he laughs. “She’s got an ass on her,” V can’t tell if he’s using the CCTV access or if he’s simply scrolling through pictures. “Hides the rest of her but, damn.”

“What do you care,” the smaller man laughs, “Savior has plans for her, the big man will probably get her as a trophy.”

“Yeah well that lunatic gets bored easily, maybe he’ll share.”

“I’ve got higher hopes than something he’s got bored of, she wouldn’t even be a person after that.”

He can’t listen to them talk about this woman like that. Whoever she was she didn’t deserve whatever Rika has in store for her and he hated to think of the person she’d made him into.

It had been hard for V to watch the way Luciel had changed during his agency training, he’d consoled himself knowing it had been a choice that Luciel had made himself but Saeren had not made that choice. He had been a sweet timid boy the day Rika had said she wanted to _save him_.

The _big man_ , they called him now, their soldiers, Mint Eye’s security. Large men, almost twice his size with years of training gave him a wide berth, not just because Savior kept him close, no one wanted to be noticed by him, singled out. No amount of brainwashing, no amount of drugs could smother the sense of self preservation they felt when confronted with him.

While they called Saeren the big man and cowered they called V Savior’s pet, and sneered. Some looked on in pity and the few children in Magenta seemed to like him but he was rarely given the freedom to be seen alone in the general population of the house. He was either flanked by Saeren or following Rika with his head down.

“Hey sad dog,” the big man called, “what do you think when you see an ass like that?”

V wonders which of these men had been Saeren’s pick, the smaller man seemed more loyal, but he also seemed more forgiving. However V was sure Saeren had broken lesser men than the big one for similar vulgarity.

He fumbles with his phone, he could attempt to listen to some music, drown them out.

“Hey, Savior said only calls from the hacker, what are you doing?” The little one calls.

“Just music,” V says hands out in supplication.

They take his phone from him and put it on the table in front of him, the big one suggest they watch television but they’re disappointed to find out the V does not have a TV in his apartment. It’s a miserable day, worse than being restricted to his room in Magenta, even more so without her voice trailing past in the distance and these two with their grunts.

He’d almost fell asleep where he sat when the phone was dropped in his lap.

“Your hacker’s calling, better get it.”

“What is it Luciel?” he asks.

“Shit V, that was, you answered.”

“Yes I did,” he doesn’t mean to be so short with Luciel.

“Hey whatever. I don’t know what’s going on with you right now but you know that girl in Rika’s apartment?”

V’s vision was limited, in the bright light of his apartment if he closed one eye he could almost focus on things that were close to him, and as it was it seemed like the two men watching him had turned back to the laptop on the table. “Is there something I need to know about her?”

Luciel snorts. “ _So much._ Do you have access to the CCTV?”

“I’m not sure what good that would do.”

“Oh, right. Ok well hey, ok fine. Give me a minute ok?” He can hear Luciel typing furiously on the other end of the line. “So the more I watch them, and the deeper I dig, I mean this girl is really close to Jumin, and I’m starting to wonder, you know?”

“Spit it out Luciel.”

“Well I mean you know Jumin right?” Luciel laughs, something about the laugh is almost a warning bell. “I just thought, I mean I told her not to tell him who she was but I thought maybe you knew her?”

“I don’t know anyone name Ellie,” V says quietly shaking his head.

“ _Ellie_?” Luciel chuckles again. “Listen ok, just a second can you just listen to this, it’s audio from the apartment feed, it’s from last night. I was going to send it the file to you but—”

“No this is better.”

“Yeah, alright,” Luciel agrees.

The clip is, strange, the quality of the apartment bug isn’t terrible but fed through Luciel's computer and then between phones? When he adjusts he starts to recognize something about it. “Luciel,” he says cautiously. He wishes he could see the men at the table more clearly, that he could leave the room unnoticed. “You said her name was Ellie?”

“I said her name was Elle space Lee,” He speaks slowly. “Short for Noelle Lee.”

“Luciel, please, what does she—”

“Big hair, very red, we might be related, you think my dad abandoned little red headed babies all over Korea or something?”

“Luciel,” he almost begs.

“Look, it seems like Jumin thinks of her as a sister so it stands to reason you know her, I had to get her to be a little more _careful_ yesterday and she started drinking, had some not nice things to say about you so I started digging, I just thought you might have some amendments to our previous discussion.”

“Just, keep her safe Luciel.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late and literally no one is surprised.


	17. Day Five: 3

Ok, that was kind of stupid Noelle, she scolds herself.  She’d been bored and Zen hadn’t come to rehearsal tonight.  Not that she blamed him but she was probably going to get some kind of chastising message from Seven any time now, and with Jumin there, she hadn’t intended for it to be a pile up.  She tries to back pedal when Jumin starts in but it’s too late.  

“I understand very well that you have a shallow taste,” Jumin types.

And she knows, she knows, it’s a dig meant for her.  She knows he’s trying to get her to defend herself, but  Zen takes offense and, well it spirals.  Jumin starts in on the cat food again and try as she might there’s no way Noelle can turn the conversation after that.  Poor Zen is stuck in the middle, he can’t help but feed into Jumin’s antagonistic comments and she can picture her brother on the other side of the screen, just waiting for her to out herself.  He knows that there’s truth to what he’s saying and he’s purposely antagonizing both of them.

She tries to respond in defense of Zen, even against her own opinion.  She might agree with him in some ways but agreeing with Jumin is not going to defuse this situation.  When Zen points out that Jumin is purposely messing with him it’s all she can do to watch the two of them, there’s no response she can make that won’t upset one of them, or out her to Jumin.  She does not doubt Jumin’s _intentions._  She remembers him calling her when Zen had turned down his offer to pay for school, an offer similar to one he’d made her.  He’d been so frustrated, and offended.  There was no doubt, as good as Jumin had gotten at hiding his emotions he’d felt slighted by Zen then, in no small part because of her similar refusal.

“I wish you two would get along,” she types.  She has nothing to add but she wants this to stop.  She wishes there was a way for her to talk to Zen about Jumin’s offers, to play mediator, or translator for them without giving herself away.  She wants this whole thing to be over with so she can let whatever this is between her and Zen to play out honestly.

And her fucking brother.  He’d gotten better at controlling his emotions, but even if he’d stopped hitting things when he was frustrated he certainly hadn’t stopped picking fights.  Not that the suggestion that Zen has a crush on him wouldn’t have been funny under other circumstances but now he was just pushing buttons, he seemed to have lost his purpose, he simply lashed out looking for a response from either of them.  Under other circumstances she would have called him right now, gave him shit until he laughed and called her Mom. But she can’t do that.  

Jumin leaves the chat, and Zen leaves to rehearse, of course now, it’s late and he knows she won’t be there this late on a Monday, not with work in the morning.  Noelle stretches out on the hard sofa with Darryl ‘s head in her lap when her phone rings.  Actually rings, not a call from the messenger.

“Jess?” She’s not expecting a call from her step mother.

“Noelle, I’ve haven’t heard from you I wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten about tomorrow.” Jess sounds tired, there had been little left when her father died and while Noelle did what she could to help out with her sisters she knew Jess was working long hours to keep them from having to move again.

“I’m really sorry, I have, what did I forget?”

“You promised Mei you’d take her to her skating class,” she yawns.

“Shit, Jess, dude can I reschedule, I could take her skating just the two of us to make up for it but I just got like a months worth of work dumped on me this morning, plus a special project, and rehearsals, and there’s some other shit going down I can’t even tell you about.”

“Noelle, you’ve canceled on her too many times in the last few weeks, and I can’t, there’s no one else to take her.  Lillian has an appointment tomorrow, if you don’t take her she misses the class.”

Noelle sighs.  “Ok, Jess.  If you can get her to the office I can work something out.  I’ll skip rehearsal tomorrow, it’s not a big deal my scene partner skipped on me today we’ll be even.  I’ll work it out.  Sorry.”

“I can probably do that.”

“Do you think you could pick her up at the rink too?  I can hang out with her there a little longer, I’m sure Nina will be tickled.”

Jess laughs.  “I’ll let you know.”

Jess relaxes and they talk for a little while, her sisters are in bed and Noelle feels bad that she hasn’t called in over a week.  Her step mother is barely 5 years older than her and they got along well once Noelle had given her a chance. They’d been a team, protecting her sisters from her father.

Luciel was not going to be happy that she would have her sister out while she was still being followed but she was going to put a lot of trust in him to keep them both safe.

She hangs up the phone and slips into the seat at the computer, there were a few emails from earlier in the day, she supposed with nothing else to do she should get onto this party planner business.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for day 5, sorry this is late, again. My computer is back so things will be back to normal


	18. Day Six: 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's the insinuation of phone sex? so maybe nsfw warning but it's mostly a tease. Sorry I've been shit at updating this lately

Yoosung can’t believe it’s been 6 days with the new member.  She seemed to fit in so well and she was so nice.  Sure she went along with Seven’s pranks but he’s pretty sure it would have been way worse without her.  And she was the only person who seemed to be cautious of V at all.

He liked Elle, not like like, but she was nice, she always checked on him.  She seemed to be the only member who really noticed when he wasn’t ok and from day one she’d been there checking in with him, encouraging him to eat right back and making sure he went to class.  It was hard not to compare her with Rika, the way she always made herself a bright spot in the chatroom, and in his life.  Even after only 6 days.

And it was obvious that she and Zen really liked each other, he was more than a little jealous, but she seemed to shine even brighter whenever Zen entered the chatroom.  He bet they would make a cute couple and he was more excited for the party just to get to see them meet.

Still she was a vivid reminder that Rika was gone, with every guest she curates for the party he is reminded that she’s not Rika, and every time he lets it slip she’s kind but firm, she is not Rika, she does not like the comparison.  

*

Seven had called late to let her know it was done, he’d spoke with Jihyun and he knew who she was now.  He told her not to worry but he sounded more worried with every call to her he made.  They both knew Jihyun had something to do with this, and there was definitely something Seven wasn’t telling her.  She could hear it in his voice when he spoke about her stalkers.  There was so much more going on here, and as much as he let her in on, there was something else he was keeping to himself.

She couldn’t sleep, she’d called Yoosung, he’d seemed down since the last time Jihyun had been in the chatroom and the last time he’d brought up his cousin, Jihyun’s fiancé that had died, she had snapped at him. It wasn’t his fault, she knew what it was like to see someone you loved in another person but there was too much about this Rika woman that hit too close to home.  Jihyun, her suicide, it was all too close to who she had been.  

It’s past midnight and she’s still laying awake in the little bed, Darryl splayed across her legs, when her phone vibrates.  At first she curses forgetting to mute the ringer, but her heart leaps a little to see Zen’s number on the screen.

The feeling doesn’t last long, this was not the sweet goodnight call she’d expected.  He’s tense on the other end, almost arguing with himself.

“This is all Jumin Han’s fault,” he growls into the phone.

“Zen calm down, what happened?”

He’s pushed himself too far he tells her, mad at Jumin he’d gone back to the rehearsal space and he’d hurt himself.  He curses himself, curses Jumin, simply curses and she feels so guilty.  She hadn’t helped the situation.  

“Should I go to the hospital?” he says quietly, not a question, not really.

“Zen,” she’s shaking her head.  “Do you need me to come get you, I’ll take you.”

He chuckles weakly. “Babe, that’s sweet but you know Seven wouldn’t let you.”

Shit, of course, she couldn’t take him.  She could call Seven, maybe he’d give in?  No the tone of his last call was grim even when he tried to joke.  This was too late in the game, there would be no great reveal tonight.

“I’m sorry, just please take care of yourself.”

“God, I’m so stupid,” he groans.  “I let that jerk, get to me, I’m worrying you, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she finds herself laughing, “and you’re not stupid, believe me I’ve done dumber things to prove a point.”  She can hear someone in the background talking to Zen.

“-thanks.” He says to whoever is speaking to him.  “You’ll have to tell me about it some time.  Cheer me up.  I guess I have to say goodbye to the Echo Girl role, huh?”

“Hey, don’t give up yet.”

“I should talk to a doctor first right?”

“Unless you are also secretly a doctor, but you couldn’t be that perfect right?”  She tries to appeal to his ego, cheer him up.

It doesn’t work. “One more strike against me,” he laughs bitterly.  “Babe, I have to go, I’ve got a ride to the hospital, don’t worry about me.  I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

He doesn’t wait for her to say goodbye, doesn’t playfully tell her to hang up first.  She wants to ask who is taking him, who would still be at the rehearsal space this late.  One or two people come to mind but that’s not a question she could ask without sounding suspicious.

She covers her face with a pillow.  She hates this, she feels so helpless, overwhelmed, exhausted.  She checks her C&R inbox but still nothing, a pile of work on her shoulders and a boss hovering over when all she can do is hurry up and wait.  She loves art, even loves advertising in a way but this job, these people she works for, it’s not what she’d expected.  

Realistically as much as Jumin would like to give her that promotion there were people ahead of her.  People more suited on paper and off.  She appreciated his confidence in her, and she knew she would crush that job given the opportunity but how could Jumin explain that particular move to the Old Man.  No, he hadn’t said it to her lightly but he didn’t consider things like that when he spoke to people and the reality of the situation was crashing down on her with the rest of the bad news.  

She stares at her phone, trying to will emails from her clients to appear but as the time nears 2am she sighs and puts it away.  She had notes with her, and her laptop, she decides pulling her legs free from the heavy dog and rolling over, if she didn’t fall asleep by three she would call in, go late to work.  Better to sit around here where she could at least busy herself with Party Planning than go to work and stare at her email for most of the day.

*

“You should go,” Elle had said in the chatroom.

Jaehee sat at her desk with her phone next to her keyboard watching the chat boxes scroll as the other members typed.  She’d said it on a whim, considered stopping by Zen’s home and offering her help when he’d told them he’d gotten home.  

She had her concerns about Zen and this stranger, Luciel and V had vetted her, and if she was RFA material there was no logical reason to assume anything about her would harm Zen’s reputation but Fan Clubs were fickle.  Simply having a girlfriend could lose him fans, and she worried about how that might affect the actor.

But Elle, who obviously had feelings for Zen no matter how she talked around it when Jaehee confronted her, had suggested that she go to his home.  Could she?

“Honestly Jaehee, I can’t go so you should or Yoosung I guess but I’m sure he’d rather you.” Elle texts her when everyone else has left the chat.

She was up to her eyeballs in reports but it was nothing she couldn’t take with her.  She glances over her shoulder, the door to Mr. Han’s office was closed, he had gotten in late last night but he was still here, could she justify leaving early to him?  She busies herself sorting out the files she would need to take with her, and downloading any relevant documents from the server to her laptop’s hard drive.  She didn’t know what the connection at Zen’s apartment would be like.

Mr. Han did not look up when she opened his door. “I suppose you’re leaving to nurse that fool?”

“If you would rather I not, I can stay Mr. Han.”

“Do you still insist on telling me Ms. Lee was home yesterday?”

“Yes, I spoke with her after work, we had coffee in her apartment,” Jaehee lies.

Mr. Han makes a low noise in his throat.  “Fine, do whatever you feel you need to, as long as you get your work done.”

*

She’d fallen asleep some time after 3:30am, she’d ended up moving her phone to the other side of the room, the compulsion to check her emails, to look for a text from Zen, it had been too much and she was never going to fall asleep at this rate.

There are still no real responses to her emails regarding the drafts and she considers writing a strongly worded letter to her boss. The approved drafts should never have been returned to her without notes; there wasn’t even anything to indicate that they were fine as was.  Edvil had returned with an email saying they needed to check their copies and get back to her.  

She wondered if she could inquire to her boss and his boss without involving Jumin.  It was nice to have someone high up on her side especially with the childish retaliatory discipline meetings, not that she was entirely innocent, but these days things were escalating.

She sends out a series of emails reiterating where she was with the job numbers she was assigned to, and why she was halted without calling anyone out specifically and notifies the department that she will be in by noon.  Then she packs her things and goes to the rehearsal space.

It’s early, and she has to take her sister skating after work.  But she stands on the stage and tries to decide how best to use the space for her audition.  Ki-jung and MJ both arrive shortly after her and Ki-Jung moves directly to the prop table, while MJ swaggers up to her.

“So did you hear the hush hush from your pretty friend?” MJ whispers.

“MJ, you’re my only pretty friend,” Noelle chuckles.  

“You’re lying, but I like it,” MJ stands on her toes and kisses Noelle’s cheek.  “But seriously, did you hear what happened last night?”

You were here, she wants to ask but she has to pretend she doesn’t know. “No?”

“Hmm, I figured it was you he called,” MJ considers, “Mr. Bigshot messed up last night, yours truly had to drop him off at urgent care.”

“Oh wow,” she hopes she looks surprised.  “Do you know how bad it was?”

“Ugh,” her friend’s face dropped, “it was so late I had to just leave him there, I was hoping you’d know.”

“Why are you so concerned?” She asks but she’s interrupted by Ki-Jung shoving a foil between them.

“Can you help me with this?”

“Don’t you have a scene partner yet?” She asks.

“He’s not here right now, come on.” He almost begs.

She was sloppy and exhausted but fencing with Ki-Jung served to wake her up a bit and by 10am she was starting to doubt if it was really Ophelia she wanted to read for.  She ponders it during the drive back to her apartment.  Both Ophelia and Hamlet were roles she’d love to play, but was she ready to stop restricting herself to auditioning only for women’s roles.  Was she ready to be that out yet?  She considers talking to Jumin about it, he always had practical advice for her, as surprising as that probably was to some people.  But until this was over she doubted he would be receptive to her personal problems.

She’s just getting out of the shower and ready to go to the office when her phone rings.  Zen’s ring, Noelle almost trips trying to get a towel around herself before she runs past the camera’s and ultimately failing, dropping it before she snatches her phone off the counter and dashes for the bedroom.  Fuck you Seven.

She’s panting when she answers.

“It’s me, I wanted to hear your voice,” he says, he sounds groggy and she’s happy he’s managed to rest.  She lets him talk, he was dreaming about her, they were dancing “—and that’s when I really woke up.”

“Zen,” she says softly.

“I feel like my legs all better but I’m still stuck in this cast,” he gripes.

“I know, it sucks but it hasn’t even been a day you have to keep it on.”

“You know?” He says suddenly.  “How?”

She laughs.  “So remember when I said we’ve all done dumb things?”

He laughs and she feels a little lighter for it.  “How did you do it?”

“Well I was training and my coach was paying more attention to my friend, which makes sense because she competes at a higher level than I do, but I’m kind of vain?”

“You too?” She can almost hear him smile.

“Let’s just say there was definitely a reason the jump I tried wasn’t in my program.  I was out for the rest of the season.”

“What do you compete at?” He asks.

“I skate, it’s not a big deal though, I’m on a, uh I’m on a break.  It’s more of a hobby now than anything else.”  Things are quiet while she remembers the weight of the cast on her foot, “You know you can tell me if it’s hard for you, you don’t have to hold it in.  You don’t have to be my knight in shining armor all the time.”

“Wow,” he sighs, “you got me there.  You can’t just hit me with that without warning.”

“Zen.”

“Yeah, thanks.  It is hard.  Ugh, there I said it, it’s hard.  I’m going to lose that role.”

“There will be others.”

“What if there aren’t?” he says softly. “Maybe it’s weird, I can’t live without performing.”

“It’s not weird.”

“You’re ok though, right Babe?” He says suddenly.  “You sounded out of breath when you answered aren’t you usually at work now? Nothing’s wrong?”

“What did I just say,” she laughs, “I’m fine Zen, I took the morning off.”

“You didn’t,” he starts, “not because you’re worried about me?”

She laughs.  “There’s a lot going on right now, and I’m waiting on some emails, it’s no big deal.”

There’s a few beats of silence when he speaks up. “Can I make a confession?”

Shit, she thinks, he’s going to confess to me that he kissed me, do I pretend I didn’t know, do I make my own confession?  Fuck. “Yeah, sure.”

“I can be pretty possessive, I get kind of jealous.  I try really hard not to.”

“I’m sure I can handle you,” she laughs.  

“I can be quite a loyal puppy,” he continues. “but what if I have to take a break from work and end up obsessing over you, I don’t want to cross a line.”

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it,” she says softly.  “I’m not really,” she stops, “I mean we can work on it together ok?”

“Maybe I’m talking too much? I can’t seem to calm down.  Maybe I should try to fall asleep again?”

Noelle looks at the clock, she still has plenty of time.  “Maybe I can help you calm down?”

“What?” he asks. “What do you have in mind, Babe?”

“Well,” she draws it out.  “I was getting out of the shower, and you’re not on a train, maybe we could try this again?”

“Babe,” he says cautiously, “that’s the opposite of calming down.”

She laughs. “Okay then maybe I can distract you.”

“You’re not as innocent as you come off, Elle,” he chuckles.

“You know I talked to Seven this morning, but he won’t let me come to your place yet, he did say maybe he could work something out.”

“But in the mean time,” he starts, and she can see the smile that’s probably spreading across his face.

She laughs. “Hmmm, I’m not very good at this, I can think of a hundred things I’d do if I were with you right now.”

“Start there,” she can hear the mattress creak as he shifts.

“Well,” she moves across the room and starts to sort through the clothing she’s piled on the chair in the corner, “hmm.”

“What’s wrong, babe,” he chuckles, “lose your nerve?”

“Well first I’d pull that stupid hair tie out and tangle my fingers in your hair,” she pulls out a pair of slacks out of the pile.  “What do you taste like,” she says absently.

He laughs again.

“I think I might tie your hands to the headboard,” she laughs, remembering the way he’d held her.  

“Maybe I don’t have a headboard,” he quips.

“Listen smart ass, this is a fantasy could you shut up for a minute.”

He laughs again. “I’m stuck in this bed right now,” he sighs, “So I don’t think I’d let you, even if I did have a headboard.”

“Then what would you do?” She asks, relieved that he seems to be taking over.

“I’d take you by the waist, pull you down on top of me and kiss you.”

She remembers the feel of his mouth on hers and pulls the slacks on. “I’d trail kisses down your chest,” she interjects, “trace your abs with my tongue, leave teeth marks on your thighs.”

“What are you doing right now,” he asks.

Getting dressed for work, she thinks. “I’m lying in bed,” she says softly, “tracing circles along my thighs, imagining my fingers are your mouth.”

“Hmmm,” he makes a low noise and she can hear his bed shift again.  “We should have started here.”

She laughs and starts to look for a shirt. “I never said I was good at this.”

“We’ll have to practice,” he says, his voice husky.  “What are you wearing?”

“Just a towel,” she lies, examining her shirt for wrinkles.


	19. Chapter 19

Jaehee can’t quite believe she’s here, standing outside the door to Zen’s apartment, and she definitely can’t believe that he lives in this small basement unit.  He takes almost long enough to answer the door for her to lose her nerve, but just as she’s about to turn back to her car the door swings open and a slightly dishevelled Zen answers, leaning on a crutch and pulling a tshirt over his head.

“Jaehee?” He pauses a moment before he finishes pulling the shirt over his stomach, his brows knit as he takes her in.

She blushes. “I thought,” she starts, “Elle suggested that I—”

“Elle?” He pulls Jaehee into the apartment.

“She suggested that since she cannot be here to help you that I should,” she pauses watching him, “should you be up?”

“I feel fine honestly, you didn’t have to,” he runs his fingers through his hair. “Besides, this time of day?  What if someone gets the wrong idea?”

Her cheeks flare redder and she almost drops the papers she’s been hugging to her chest. “No, no it’s not—”

He laughs. “I was joking, but really I’m fine.  What about your work, I’m sure you have better things to do.”

Jaehee squares her shoulders and walks past him pressing her documents into the countertop, he notices the grocery bag hanging from her wrist for the first time.  “I can work from here, and I’ve bought you cigarettes so that you don’t strain yourself when you should be recovering, sit down I will make lunch.”

Zen stands by the door for a moment, leaning casually on his crutch before he follows her orders.  He stops however staring down at the small sofa and then looking back to her in his little kitchen.  “Hey,” he frowns, “you should at least let me help make lunch, tell me what to do.”

*

Noelle is pleasantly surprised by a pile of notes for the Edvil account sitting on her drafting table.

The day goes by easily, she sits at her table with her headphones in only leaving to fill her coffee cup, even Jumin doesn’t come to bother her today.  She manages a few panels of a cleaner draft for the new board and to keep up with the chatroom between emails.

She’s making a coffee when another call from Zen vibrates in her pocket and she finds herself smiling when she answers. “Did you manage to fall asleep?”

“No help from you,” he chuckles, and she can feel her cheeks flush red.  “Actually,” he whispers, “Jaehee is here.”  

“Oh did she actually go,” Noelle smiles to herself, whatever her friend’s feelings for Zen she knew she would keep him from doing something stupid.

“She said you had something to do with it,” and she can picture the way his lips would part as he smiled.  “I’m sneaking out,” he whispers.

“You’re what?” She laughs.  

“I want to do something nice for her, there’s a food truck on my street that makes really good Bungeo-ppang.’

“And you have to sneak out?” she tries to stifle her laughter; Gwon is watching her over their drafting tables shaking his head.

“Her bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”

Noelle can hear the sound of a window sliding open. “Just a sec, ok Babe?”

She keeps laughing in response.  She starts to hum the mission impossible theme song when she hears him pick the phone back up.

He huffs. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“Did you literally climb out of a window with a boot on your foot to buy fried bread,” she snorts and has to cover her mouth to keep from cackling.

“I think she’s sitting outside the door, she wants to make sure I don’t hurt myself more.  I really appreciate it but it feels like having a babysitter.”

“You just climbed out of a window; maybe you need a babysitter.”

Zen snorts in response and they make small talk for a few minutes before he lets her go back to work so he can talk to the man at the food truck.  

She hums when he hangs up and the music on her phone kicks back in, the rest of the work on her desk goes by without much effort, trading faces and obscene hand gestures with Gwon whenever they manage to get one another’s attention.  She’s farther along than she’d expected when the call comes through from security that Jess is there with her sister.

“Look at you,” her step mother exclaims when she comes around the corner at reception.

“Don’t act like you haven’t seen me in years, it’s only been a two weeks,” she rolls her eyes and crouches to catch 53lbs of eight year old that comes barreling towards her. Noelle pulls her sister over her shoulder and takes her skating bag from Jess.

“Lil and I should be at the rink just after practice ends,” she places an exaggerated kiss on Mei’s forehead. “Don’t talk back to Nina just because Noelle is there.”

“Good lord, have you been giving Nina shit child?” Noelle swings around like she’s trying to face the child slumped over her shoulder.  “I can’t save you, you just gotta do what she says, Mei.”

“But you’re bigger than her,” Mei whines.

“I’m bigger than a lot of people,” Noelle laughs, “doesn’t mean I get to do what I want.”

“Hmph.” Noelle feels a pair of tiny arms fold across her back.

She waves to her step mother and smiles at the receptionist before heading back to her desk to pack up, Mei steals a lollipop from Gwon before scaling the stool at Noelle’s drafting table and starting to draw on a scrap of paper while she waits.  Noelle half joins another RFA chat, cheering Jaehee on as she lays into Zen about sneaking out and waves goodbye to Gwon after taping Mei’s picture to her desk.

They’re just turning to go to the rink when Noelle realizes she didn’t put her skates in the car before she left for work, with everything else that had happened she’d totally forgot.

“Do not tell your Mother,” she says firmly as she makes a U-turn and heads back to the apartment.

*

V had started to think of the men in his apartment as the Big Idiot and the Gross Idiot, the gross one’s comments getting to him more and more since Luciel had told him who the person in Rika’s apartment really was.  He was conflicted.  He knew Rika had chosen Noelle specifically, but as far as he’d known she had never known about their relationship.  

He supposed she could have found out with little effort but even in this state it seemed beyond Rika to be so vindictive, did she even care enough about him anymore to be jealous.  Besides that, there had been more than two years between Rika and Noelle, there was nothing to indicate that he even thought of her anymore.  Even on the rare occasion Jumin spoke of Noelle in front of Rika there had been nothing said to connect them as more than acquaintances.

But here he was, the big and gross idiots dropping him off in front of the apartment that Rika had never really done more than work in. The lobby keys still work even if his eyes didn’t and after a moment of fumbling with the lock he makes his way to the elevator, and the 14th floor. He puts the code into the door by muscle memory alone, no need to see anymore he’d picked Rika up here so many times he was in the door before he’d even thought about it.

A low rumble greets him, a cautious boof and the clack of dog nails across the floor.  “Hey buddy,” he says softly tucking his cane under his arm and crouching down with his hand out. It’s still dim in the apartment and he can’t really see more than the shadow of a blur somewhere in front of him.  The big animal’s nose presses into his forehead and again into his chest, then into his neck making him laugh.  

He scratches the big animal under the chin and stands.  Noelle would be at work right now, he wasn’t sure what she did but judging from what he’d seen in the messenger and from what Luciel had told him she worked a regular 9-5 job.  He’s turning on the lights, hoping he can get it bright enough to see where she might have left the dogs leash when his phone rings.

“Hello Luciel,” he says, moving his head around, hoping he could be seen smiling on a camera somewhere.

“V what’s wrong why are you in the apartment? Should I call Noelle, let them know not to come back?”

“It’s fine Luciel,” he waves his hand, knowing somewhere there is a camera that can see him.

“She’s not going to be happy to see you,” Luciel snorts.

“She’s plenty of very good reasons not to be.”

“Ok then, have fun with that,” Luciel hangs up and V manages to find the leash sitting on the counter in the kitchen. He takes the dog out, holding tight to the leash with his cane tucked beneath his arm he considers that he probably should not take a strange animal anywhere but he feels bad, locked in a strange place all day alone, he could sympathize.

He opens the curtains making the room as bright as possible when he returns, he hopes to get the best look at Nel he can, but by the time he hears the voices in the hallway the sun is too far gone.  He pulls himself up off the sofa when he hears the lock whir, and manages only to bump into two out of place chairs as it swings open.

A little girl stares at him from the doorway, familiar green coloured eyes wide as she backs out and slams the door.

“Mei, my skates,” he hears a familiar annoyed voice outside.

“I think it’s the wrong one,” he hears a small voice respond.

Then laughter, deep bellowing laughter that he’d completely forgotten about, he can remember the way it would vibrate through him when she would bury her face in shoulder. “It’s not my apartment I told you that,” she says, still chuckling as she pushes the door open.

“I know that but there’s a man.”

“That’s a dog,” Noelle points past V to the dog on the sofa, the final word dying on her lips as she makes eye contact.

“Hello Noelle,” he says softly, his own voice catching a little. She’s hard to see with his vision and the dimming light but there’s the distinct halo of red.

“I guess I owe seven a tank of gas,” she makes herself say.

“I-Sorry.” He wishes he could make out her expression, even if it’s angry, twisted, scowling, he squints his right eye, trying to focus on her face.

She grabs the hand of the little girl she’s come in with and shoves her forward.  “Mei this is my, uh someone I went to school with, say hello to Mr. Kim.”

He kneels down at eye level with her. “Hello Mei, please don’t call me Mr. Kim, Jihyun is fine.”

She nods but Noelle whispers in her ear “Call him Mr. Kim.” Mei laughs and he can hear the smirk on Noelle’s face.

“Noelle I wanted to—”

“Jihyun, I don’t have time, I have to get my sister to her class and I forgot my skates, besides I have like 3 seconds before Seven gives me shit for even bringing her here.”

“That’s fine,” he laughs.  He hadn’t realized hearing her voice would still affect him after so many years.  “Do you mind if I join you, Mei?” he asks before standing up.

He can hear Noelle sigh, and he’s sure she’s rolling her eyes.  “Fine but I’m driving.”

“I would hope so,” he chuckles as he runs into an out of place stool when he goes to grab his cane.

Jihyun’s voice was rougher than she remembered, though she supposed he may still smoke, and that always took a toll.  She throws her skate bag over her shoulder and watches as Jihyun walks into a stool.

His chuckle is rough too, almost a cough and she watches as he turns, the telltale red tipped cane in his hand.

“Wait,” she stammers, forgetting that she’s mad, forgetting that Seven is suspicious and she’s supposed to hate him, she grabs him by the shoulders. “What happened to your eyes?”

“Jumin never said anything then?” She watches the way he keeps the smile on his face, the practiced mask she used to see when his father would critique his photos.

She pushes his sunglasses up on his head, the rough pad of her thumb smoothing his furrowed brow.  “He never says anything except have you called him yet.”

He brushes her hands away and drops his sunglasses back down. “At least he’s consistent.”

“Oh?” she says.  She’d assumed that Jumin only bothered her about it; he had always saved his nagging for her.  She was surprised that he would bother Jihyun about calling her, and more surprised that this information seemed make her less angry with him.  “I guess we’re each as bad as the other.”

“That’s what your brother continues to tell me,” the corner of his mouth twitches and she feels her heart lighten, it had been so long since someone had called Jumin her brother so casually.

“I suppose you should come along, I just need to take Darryl out, Mei you don’t mind giving up the front seat?”

Her sister opens her mouth to answer but Jihyun interrupts.  “I’ll sit in the back.”

Noelle snorts and shakes her head.  “Not in my car, it’s too small, Jihyun.  I’m mad but I’m not sadistic.”

Mei groans and they both laugh.

“I just have to take the dog out then.”

“I uh,” Jihyun rubs at his neck, “I did that just before you came in.”

“Oh?” Noelle raises her eyebrows at him.  “Did you behave Darryl or did you run the arms off the poor blind man.”

Darryl whines and thumps his tail against the couch guiltily.

“He was perfectly well behaved,” Jihyun lies.

She frowns from Jihyun to the guilty dog and then with two fingers points from her eyes to the animal. “You and I will be having a talk when I get home,” she says firmly to the dog, who hangs his head in response and looks away.

“What happened when I wasn’t around to make you and Jumin like this?” Jihyun mumbles under his breath.

Noelle pretends she didn’t hear him and they take the elevator down to the garage in relative silence.  

“Where did you go to school with Noelle?” Mei asks when they’re all buckled into the car.

He turns his head to Noelle for a minute before laughing.  “We went to school here in Korea, I knew Nel-Noelle before she moved to Canada with you.”

“Wow, so you’re pretty old then?”

Noelle snorts.  “Thanks kid, try to remember the dinosaurs are driving the car, ok?”

She watches her sister shrug and put in headphones in the rear view mirror and ignores a call from Seven.

“You’re not going to answer that?” Jihyun smiles at her.

“It’s Seven, he either thinks he’s got something hilarious to say or he’s going to rag on me for bringing Mei into the apartment, and I don’t feel like listening to it.”

Jihyun laughs.

“So how bad is it?” She asks.

“Not so bad,” he shrugs.

“That’s a lie,” she doesn’t look at him while she drives, her smile has faded.  

“It’s been gradual; I can still kind of see out of my left eye in the right light, I’m used to it now.”

You mean you’re resigned to it, she thinks.  “So you can’t take photos anymore?”

He shrugs again and she wants to pull over and shake him.  “I’ve been doing micro photography on good days but it won’t be long before my camera is a paper weight, you’re right.”

“Jihyun, what happened?”

“It was an accident.”

She recalls the slight scarring around his eyes before he’d pushed her hands away.  She rattles the bracelets on her wrists. “Yeah me too,” she says frowning.

The rest of the drive is silent, she offers Jihyun help getting into the rink but he shakes his head and extends his cane.  She can see the smile spread across his lips as they step into the rink proper and she can tell it’s bright enough for him to see a little as he swivels his head around.

“Wow,” he whispers.

“Yeah big change, huh?” She remembers the three of them spending afternoons on the ice as teenagers, just skating in circles; helping her mother choreograph with the coaches while Jumin and Jihyun tried to look cool or waited outside smoking cigarettes.  “Nina’s brought a lot of money in.”

“Jumin says you skate too?”

“Dad wouldn’t let me dance anymore, but after I was hospitalized he compromised.  I think he thought a good Korean girl like Nina would rub off on me.” She snorts and then turns her attention on her sister.  “Mei get to the locker room then find me so I can check your laces, and for the love of god use your blade guards, Ma doesn’t sharpen those blades so you can ruin them on the concrete.”

“I wish I’d brought my camera,” he laments quietly.

“I have enough blurry photos of me on the ice thanks to Jumin,” she laughs.

“In this light with the right lens,” he starts but he trails off when she shakes her head at him.

“Come on, if you hold my purse I won’t make you sit in the bleachers with the parents,” she smiles at him and leads him to the bench.

*

V follows Noelle through the rink, the bright white lights making it easier to see.  When they were teenagers it had been smaller but he can see the doors on the other side leading to a newer ice pad, which seems to also be in use.  He remembers dropping Noelle off to help her mother with the figure skaters in her dance classes, watching Noelle on the ice as she followed skaters and critiqued their extensions and arabesques.

Watching Noelle when she thought she was alone on the ice then, it doesn’t surprise him now that she would settle for skating.  He wonders if she’s admitted to herself that it wasn’t really settling.

Noelle leads him to the bench where a small woman and a very tall man greet them.  The man claps Noelle on the shoulder and they exchange a few words in French before he takes the ice.

“I thought it might be months, Noelle,” the woman teases. “Isn’t that what you said just a few days ago?”

“Don’t gloat, Nina, I forgot I promised to take Mei to her class tonight.”

“And you decided to bring your skates.”

“Please don’t make me regret that,” Noelle laughs.

“If you could stop flaunting your parade of attractive men in front of my face I might consider it.”

His vision is still poor but he swears he can see Noelle’s face turn as red as her hair. “Nina Theriault-Chu this is an old acquaintance of mine, Jihyun Kim.” Nina smiles and reaches for his hand. “That was Gilles Theriault, Nina’s coach and Step-Dad.”

“Is he still my Step-Dad if he’s not married to my Mom anymore?” Nina laughs.

“You still call him Dad.” He can hear Noelle rolling her eyes.

V watches the two women sit down on the bench shoulder to shoulder joking with one another as they lace up their skates.  Gilles Theriault and his daughter making this little rink their home rink would certainly have brought in some sponsorship money.

“You’ll be working with the older kids, they have a competition coming up, Dad has two teams you can take the newbies, they want our commercial program if you’re willing to let them use it.”

“It’s a backup plan really, but I can have some papers drafted, and they can use it as long as they don’t mind signing them.”

“It’s a good program,” Nina laughs.  “I’ll be working with the littles, your sister is in for a world of hurt tonight.”

V can see kids filing onto the ice while Nina and Noelle stand and the quiet music swells as they step on the ice.  Noelle goes straight to her sister dropping to one knee in front of her and, he assumes, checking her laces and making that same two fingered I’m watching you gesture before catching up to the other coaches.

Jihyun is quiet, even after Nina’s comments, and she can see him watching her in her peripheral.  She follows Nina onto the ice and watches her friend fiddle with the remote she keeps in her sweater pocket. She takes a moment to check Mei’s laces before she joins the coaches.  The music changes and they wave at the kids stepping onto the ice and start the warm up, it feels good to be here again, teaching the kids, laughing with Nina.

They pick up speed and glance behind them at the competition level kids in their group, Nina calls out and she can see everyone follow orders, a wave of left legs extended, a hop, a wave of kids all crouching down, and then up.  She and Nina turn, skating backwards and watching the kids divide up into their groups as the song winds down and the coaches congregate at center ice.

“Noelle’s got the Newbies Dad, Taemin and I have the littles tonight, when you’re done with the kids send them down to help.”

Everyone nods and Gilles takes his two pairs off the ice to the second pad as it clears out.

“Do you guys have the song?” Noelle asks as she stops in front of her skaters.  They nod at her, holding out their ear buds, wide eyed and she can’t tell if they’re shy or scared.  “Nina said you’re new, did she mean to the rink, or to competitive skating or—”

“Noelle Lee,” she girls whispers.

Noelle frowns, she was not a popular skater, and she rarely competed above national levels.  “That’s me,” she smiles clipping her hair out of her face.  “Nina said she showed you my program so can I see what you’ve got?”

The kids are good, they loosen up right away and get right to work, she wonders what the other skaters have said about her to make them so concerned, but she knows from experience that sometimes a little bit of absence can cause a lot of speculation, especially with this age group.

She works with them, tweaking aspects to fit better to their skill levels and adding some things that seem to showcase their strengths moreso than hers and Nina’s.  She watches them skate her program with the shakey confidence of two young skaters and made more tweaks, if this program was going to be competitive she needed to up the technical aspect rather than focus entirely on performance.

She waves Nina over and fishes her phone and the remote out of her pocket. “Hey!”  

“I need to see them do it once proper and know they’re hitting their cues then we’re done ok?”

Nina laughs but she herds the littles off the ice and Noelle steps off into the benches by Jihyun while she starts the music.

The kids are nervous and she wishes that she didn’t have to do this with 16 tiny eyeballs trained on them but they shake it off.   She stands next to Jihyun and leans on the boards, watching her team.

“They’re shaky,” she whispers, unsure how much of this he can see, “but they’re already hitting their cues. Good twizzle,” she interrupts herself to shout and the girl’s face breaks into a smile.

“Hmm,” Jihyun hums when the boy loses his footing.

“Shake it off, you’re doing great!” she calls.

The jumps are rough, the foot work is sloppy and the whole thing is shaky but they have plenty of time to work through it.  She’s smiling when the kids skate up to her, nervous smiles on their faces.

“How many times have you skated the original routine since Nina showed you?”

The boy shrugs. “Only a few Coach Lee,” the girl frowns.  “We’ve only had two practices to work on it and then this one.”

“You’re doing great,” Noelle steps back on the ice. “You’ll need to work on your lifts and jumps but we’ve got time, everything else comes with practice and confidence.  I’m not sure how often I can come right now but Coach Theriault and Coach Chu are excellent resources, don’t be afraid to lean on them.”


	20. end Day 6

Noelle had cleared the rink to watch her kids skate her program, she leaned into him as they did whispering nervously between shouting encouragements.  He could tell she loved coaching these kids and wondered what had stopped her, how long had she been away.

He watches her build the nervous teenagers up and then skate off with them towards the smaller skaters as the other coaches come through the doors to the other rink.  He squints his right eye and can almost focus on Noelle as she grabs a little kid by the hand pulls them into a spin.

He can’t see more than blurry silhouettes at this distance but he can tell the four coaches  are putting all the kids through their paces, it’s not much longer before a woman and a child take a seat on the bench behind him.

“Nini’s on the ice Mama.”

“Yes she is Lil,” the woman answers, “it looks like she’s coaching today.”

V steps to the side as the woman stands and sits the small girl on the boards in front of her. He smiles as the little girl waves frantically and yells to her sisters.  Noelle and the other coaches skate up to the box, she reaches out and grabs the little girl and does a spin while she squeals.  The woman beside him grabs him by the arm and then let’s go quickly apologizing.

“It’s alright,” he says softly, “I think Noelle does these things on purpose.”

“Oh,” she says as Noelle places the little girl down on the boards again, “do you know my step-daughter?”

“Jess,” Noelle scolds.  “You’re like five years older than me, God.”

V laughs, the way she said god was so much like Jumin, he’d forgotten how alike they could be sometimes.

Her stepmother only frowns at her expectantly.

“Mother,” Noelle drawls, extending a hand dramatically in his direction.  “You’ve heard me mention Jihyun Kim.”

Noelle’s step mother tries to hide the way her face convulses for a moment and if she hadn’t been standing so close he may have missed it.

“Jihyun,” Noelle continues her dramatics, “My Step-Mother, Ms. Jessica Lee. Charmed I am certain.”

“I believe he’s supposed to say that part shit head,” Jess shakes her head at Noelle, but she only shrugs in return.

“Mei is taking her skates off and then she’ll be ready to go, for the love of god make sure she dried the blades and didn’t just leave them in her guards.”

“Yes boss,” Jess salutes her step daughter as a sneaker clad Mei slides across the ice only to have Nina catch her by the hood.

A few more jokes and orders are exchanged and Noelle hugs her sisters. The coaches skate a few laps around the rink gathering up things here and there, garbage from someone’s pocket, an abandoned mitten, a couple hair ties.

The ice is clear aside from Noelle and Nina who are center ice deep in conversation.  Noelle’s hands are moving when they smaller woman skates away and he can’t tell if she’s happy or angry.

“You’re not in a hurry, right Blue?” Nina chirps at him as she steps off the ice and walks past him, her hand in her pocket fiddling with something and the music starts

He wishes he could see better, the speed Noelle moves makes it hard to focus on her, her arms sway and move gracefully, he remembers how much he’d always enjoyed watching her rehearse her dances alone, it had been something he enjoyed much more than seeing her on a stage.  

Without her skates on Nina is shorter than he imagined and he jumps a little when she leans on the boards next to him.  “She’s good right?”

Noelle lands a jump combination and he sighs.  “I honestly don’t know.”

Nina laughs. “You don’t have to get the scoring to tell, you know.”

“It’s not that,” he taps his cane against the boards.

He can hear her sharp intake of breath as Noelle stops in front of them. “She did that on purpose,” she whispers.

“Probably,” he agrees.

“You’re talking about me,” Noelle laughs skating past them.  “I can tell because you both look mad but you’re laughing.”

*

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Savior’s hand is gentle on his cheek but he knows that could change in a moment.

“We can’t,” he inhales through his nose waiting before he continues but she only taps her fingers along his cheekbone, “trust him,” he continues.  “Are you sure we can leave them alone together.”

Her hand slides down his face and she takes him firmly by the chin. “He is not as useless as you think,” she frowns, pressing her forehead to his, golden hair falling down around them like a veil.  “He knows who holds his leash.”

She gives his chin a shake before letting him go, straightening her back and looking down her nose at him and he feels that ache in his chest.  When will he die, he wants to ask her but he knows he can’t.  He has too much to do to test her patience right now.  So he nods and turns to leave her there.

“Stay here with me,” she calls to him, her voice singsong now.

She’s smiling when he turns, that bright childish smile he sees in his dreams.  “I could stay a little while,” he says softly.  They both knew he had things to do but even if he’d wanted to leave her side he knew she wouldn’t let him, not when her mood turned like this.

“We should take communion together,” she smiles reaching into her robes as he steps back towards her. She gestures to the bench beside her with her other hand and when he’s close enough she pulls her hand free of the robe, pressing her thumb against his mouth, pushing the small pill past his lips.

She giggles at the face he makes, watching him to make sure he swallows whatever it is she’s given him and he watches her take her own, smile wide as she claps her hands, he forces himself to smile with her, he has so much to do, if his brother finds him out now he could have to start from scratch, but it all starts to slip away as he watches the colours of her robe and the way the light from the coloured glass dance across her hair.

*

“I just need to make sure no one left anything in the locker room,” Noelle calls breaking away from Jihyun and Nina.

It was a lie, she’d seen Taemin check the rooms before he’d left but she had to make a call without Jihyun hearing.  She has 4 missed calls from Seven when she pulls her phone out of her pocket, and a voicemail from Jumin.  

She ignores it and dials his number, not waiting for a greeting when she hears him pick. “What the fuck, Jumin?  What is wrong with you.”

“I’m sorry,” Jumin says, obviously irritated, she can hear the glasses of wine he’s drank thickening his words.  “Is there something you’d like to discuss?  Someone you’ve seen recently you’d like to talk about.”

“Why yes, Jumin,” she says sardonically trying to control her voice, keep from shouting at him. “How about Jihyun and the fact that he’s fucking blind.”

“What?” She can hear the chair groan as he sits forward.  “You’ve seen him then?”

“Oh my god, did you think I was talking about Zen, are you still on about that?  God fucking dammit Jumin, you know it’s me, you know I’m not supposed to tell you, get over yourself.  Is that why you wanted me to call him?  Jumin he won’t tell me what happened did he—”

“He didn’t,” Jumin says quickly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She whispers and lets out a shaky breath.

“He asked me not to,” she can hear the frustration in his voice.  “No one in the RFA knows, Noodle, and he won’t do anything about it.  You’re with him?”

“We’re at the rink, he’s waiting for me right now.”  Jumin hadn’t called her Noodle in years, not since she was 18 years old.

“Please talk to him about it, there’s a surgery—”

“Is that why you’ve wanted me to call him?” She asks.

“One of many reasons, he won’t listen to me but he might listen to you.”

“Jumin, it’s been so long, if he won’t listen to you what makes you think I can talk him into anything?”

“You always could.”

*

It seems to take Noelle longer than really necessary to check the locker room and Nina has left him standing at the doors waiting, he watches the dim rink, most of the lights off, waiting for one of the shadows to turn into Noelle.  When she finally appears he can tell she’s upset by her posture and he wonders if she’d finally answered one of Luciel’s phone calls.

She presses a hand into his back as she brushes past him to open the door.  “Let’s go.”

He hears the jangle of keys as the door swings shut behind him and she locks it.  Her steps are heavy behind him and she takes him by the elbow, turning him and leading him back to her car but she doesn’t speak.  He can hear the way her breath catches every now and then, like she’s inhaling before speaking but gives up.

The car ride back to Rika’s apartment is filled with pregnant silence. It’s dark now and the city is a blur of lights passing like prolonged exposure photography.  

“Why won’t you get the surgery,” she asks quietly, turning into the parking garage.

“Hmm?” It takes him a moment to register the question. “It’s not— Did you call your brother?”

“Don’t change the subject Jihyun, he says you’re refusing to even try to fix your eyes.” She brakes a little harder than necessary and he gets out of the car the moment it’s stopped but she’s not far behind him.

“There are plenty of people who are blind, Noelle, why should I try to change the cards I’ve been dealt.”

“That’s stupid,” she shouts after him.  “If Jumin is just pushing you into something that’s not going to work you can say that.”

He stops. “It’s not that. Not everything needs to be fixed Noelle.”

They step into the elevator together and Noelle leans heavy against the wall.

“So what?  Are you punishing yourself?”

He doesn’t answer her.

“I’m ok,” he says finally as the doors open on the fourteenth floor.

“You’re self flagellation is not convincing me,” she snaps.

He presses the code into the keypad and pushes the door open and she pushes past him into the apartment.  He can hear her keys hit the top of the island in the kitchen followed by another sound like heavy metal while he turns the lights on and waves for Luciel’s cameras.

When he catches up to her in the kitchen she holds out her arms, in the bright florescent lights he can see she’s taken the heavy bracelets she was wearing off.  “Did you do it to yourself?” She says softly, her head down, she cradles her wrists against her chest.

“What did Jumin say?”

“He didn’t” she shakes her head.  

“Noelle—”

“Nevermind,” she says after a deep breath.  “It’s not my business, sorry.”

“Noelle?”

“No,” she tilts her head.  “Don’t worry about it.  You don’t want to talk about it, fine.  It’s been 8 years there’s plenty I don’t want to talk about too.”

He takes a few steps towards her and takes her hands in his.  His soft thumb brushes over her wrists, he knows she wears the bracelets to hide the scars and he’s happy he can’t see well enough to see the marks left there.  “Like this?”

She pulls her hands away.  “I think you already know all you need to know about that.”

“You know Jumin blamed me?”

“I did too for a while,” she admits.  “Not that I did it because of you,” she follows quickly, “but sometimes I thought if you’d have called?  Or if you had have done something that day in your room,” she trails off and they stand in the kitchen for a minute before she finds her voice again.  “I just wanted a reason to hate you, it would have been easier.  But none of it was your fault.”

“Why did you?” He asks softly, standing in front of her in the little apartment kitchen while she leans against the sink.

“I was alive for three years with you and Jumin, and at first I kept thinking I just had to wait it out and I could go back to that, but then Mom died and there was nothing to go back to.  I don’t know, it seemed better than being like I was.”

“I’m sorry about your Mom.”

“Yeah,” she says.

There’s awkward silence in the kitchen of his dead girlfriend’s apartment and she watches his face, processing the things she’d said.  When she told him there were things she didn’t want to say, she didn’t expect to follow it up by spilling her guts but here they were.

She supposed she’d rehashed these things so often with her therapist that it made it easier to talk about but in reality there was a lot she wanted to say to him.  She’d always thought she’d be angrier when she finally got this chance again but she was expecting the cocky artist not this.  

Not this sad broken man who reminded her so much of the person she was when she’d lost her mother.  She reaches out and takes the sunglasses off his face.  She sets them down on the counter behind her and brushes his hair out of his face.  The scars are light, she can’t tell what they look like, just slight discolorations and a little mark in his left eyebrow.

His hands wrap around hers and push them away.

“I need to shower and change,” she says finally.  “Are you staying?”

“If that’s alright with you.”

She shrugs.  “Can you take Darryl out?”

He smiles and nods.

She points at the dog sitting at the end of the island. “Remember your manners, Darryl.”

Jihyun shakes his head.

When she’s done Jihyun is in the kitchen cooking, she slides up to him on sock feet and smiles. “Can I help?”

“Finish cutting these.” He pushes a cutting board towards her.  “You didn’t have much in the fridge.”

“I wasn’t expecting company.”

“You’re still a terrible cook, aren’t you?”

She laughs. “I guess this is what they call the blind leading the blind?”

“No.”

They both laugh.  Eventually he pushes her out of the way and finishes cutting the vegetables himself while she sets the table and then retreats to the sofa with her laptop.  He puts the lid on the pan and brings her a glass of wine.

She smiles up at him from the sofa. “This is like a peek into an alternate time line, you know.”

“It is a little weird,” he agrees frowning down at her.

She watches a look cross his face, and waves her hand in front of her chest. “So how well can you see right now?”

His blush tells her all she needs to know and she laughs.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just—”

“You just noticed,” she laughed.  “I can’t wear my binder all the time,” she shrugs.  “The meds I’m on, while I was still in the hospital I gained weight, and these came with it,” she gestures to her chest.  “Lucky me when I lost the weight I kept the boobs.” Her voice drips with sarcasm. “Took some getting used to, Jess bought me a binder but Dad didn’t let me wear it.”

“I didn’t mean to stare.”

“I mean Jumin reacted worse,” she laughed.

“He isn’t a fan of change.”

“I was, still bigger the first time he saw me after everything, he came to one of my first competitive skates.”

“I can only imagine the things he said.”

They both laugh and he Jihyun finishes cooking while she works at her computer.

She’s tired, it’s been a big day on very little sleep and by the time they’re finishing eating she’s feels like she could fall asleep standing but Jihyun collects the dishes from the table and then he takes her by the hand and pulls her out of the chair.

“Do you remember,” he smiles and she can tell they’re both a little drunk from the wine they’ve drank, “your mother’s impromptu dance classes?”

His hand presses against the small of her back and he twines his fingers in with hers. “How could I forget?”  She places her free hand on his shoulder and they do a stiff box step to the music playing on her laptop.

“You weren’t so tall then though,” Jihyun frowns and she laughs resting her head against his.

“The cruel twists of fate,” she chuckles as they sway next to the table.  The two of them humming along to the song.  She was tired, and she kept thinking about excusing herself, to go to sleep.  Jihyun could stay or he could leave.  She hadn’t learned anything Seven could use but maybe he’d seen something on the camera’s that she hadn’t noticed.

She sighs, turning to tell him how tired she is but his lips brush her cheek and suddenly her lips are on his, arms tight around her as his tongue pushes into her mouth, her arms tight around his neck as if the force of it might knock her off her feet.

And then, “—No!” She almost shouts and pushes away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he says taking three steps away from her and stumbling into the coffee table.

“I’m sorry, I can’t, it’s not, I’m sorry,” she says and her knees are weak, she stumbles a little and catches herself on the dining table.

“I’m sorry,” he says again and helps her to the sofa.  “I didn’t mean to.”

She shakes her head. “We drank too much wine, I should know better.  I just—”

“Hyun,” he offers and she nods.

“Under other circumstance—”

“You really like him, huh?”

“I really do,” she smiles lazily and she can feel her eyes drifting shut.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers as she drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting, I'm sorry about that. If you'd like to follow me on twitter I post updates when I will be late @botanyvampire 
> 
> Updates for Lost Boys and Practically Impractical are moving to every second week until my Buffers are built back up.
> 
> Just a note with the release of V route, I have written days 7 and 8 for this already, so far this story conflicts with some of the new canon, but it's also confirmed some of my Mint Eye theories. If anyone is worried about spoilers for V route I don't think it's necessary in relation to the story I'm telling here


	21. Day Seven: 1

“What the fuck is going on?” Luciel yells at the surveillance feed from Rika’s apartment and drops his forehead to his desk.  He didn’t have time for this, work was starting to pile up and this was too much.  How was he supposed to get anything done like this?

He watches V on the camera sitting next to where Noelle was sleeping on the couch and he feels sick in the pit of his stomach.  Noelle hadn’t been in the chat since they’d left work and they weren’t answering the phone, at least he knew where they were, could follow them on the CCTV, but he needed to talk to them.  The speed at which they’d let their guard down was unacceptable, especially now that he’d seen all this.

V wasn’t stupid, and Luciel did not get a look at whoever dropped him off outside the building, the car had parked off camera, but it was not like V drove himself and there were no outgoing calls for a taxi or Luciel would have known.  Then there was the way he stopped outside the building like he was looking for someone.

The agency had trained him for a lot of things he never thought he’d have a use for but reading body language was coming in frustratingly handy.  He could tell by the way he moved that V knew he was being watched by more than just his pet hacker.  

Then Noelle had brought their sister into it.

There was a moment, when they’d gotten home, he could see things were tense between them. He almost went to the apartment himself, but then there was Vanderwood here to keep him from doing anything like that.  Vanderwood popping up like a Jack-in-the-Box reminding him that anything he did outside the agency was a luxury.

He almost didn’t catch it and he’s still not sure what he saw. Noelle had left the monitored areas of the apartment and V had taken a call, his posture changes and Luciel almost doesn’t recognise the man on the camera. He doesn’t even notice when his fingers stop moving.  V becomes small suddenly, and then he hangs up the phone and Luciel watches as he starts to go through the fridge, and slowly his posture is back to normal.

But his hand keeps going to his pocket and Luciel is almost positive that there is something in one of the wine glasses when he pours them a drink, the tight lipped way he walks away from Noelle after he hands them the glass.  He didn’t see it happen, he can’t say for sure but he’s just got a feeling in his gut, this was bad.  

He tries to focus on his work. Even manages to get somewhere with it, and he’s not sure what has happened but there’s a fast movement on the monitor that catches his eye and he glances over to see V stumbling over a coffee table, Noelle gesturing at him with a pained look and then—

Did they collapse?  No, but there’s something, V is helping them to the sofa and he looks— Luciel can’t place the emotion, but it’s the same look he gets when people mention Rika; regret, remorse, he’s not sure.  He can see his mouth forming the words I’m sorry, over and over and Noelle is asleep on the sofa.  Or he hopes they’re asleep.

Luciel is practically chin in hands inspecting the monitor, Noelle is breathing, and had he not suspected already that V had slipped something in their drink he would have simply assumed they’d drank too much.  Their chest rises and falls and they appear healthy as far as he could judge by looking.  But V looks worried and he pulls out a phone Luciel does not recognise.  His face twists while he argues with someone, shaking his head almost constantly.

Luciel wants to call him, demand to know what he put in the wine but his computer screen flashes up a warning and his heart stops.

“Vanderwood!” He can’t believe he’s shouting for them but this is bad, and he’s going to need help if he wants to finish his workload and deal with whatever is going on with the RFA.

*

Her head is pounding when she wakes up, her chest is tight, her muscles ache and the room blurs at the edges as she glances around trying to piece together the night before, she only remembers drinking two glasses of wine, and the open bottle with wine still in it confirms it.  She stumbles to her feet and her stomach lurches but she wills herself not to vomit.  

Jihyun is gone, a note on the coffee table beside her only says Sorry, in his hand writing.

She can see her phone in the kitchen blinking with notifications and as she shuffles closer the clock on the stove says it’s almost 10am.  Shit.  She stumbles forward, she’s late but she’s not sure she could manage work right now, just thinking about the florescent lights above her desk makes the throbbing in her head worse.

She picks her phone up and thumbs through the notifications, missed calls from Zen, Yoosung and Jaehee, a number of missed chats, and a text from Jumin.

_ I’ve spoken with V, you’re excused for the day, please feel better, Noodle. _

Jumin calling her Noodle after all these years has her feeling all sorts of ways.  She hopes that he’s not making assumptions about her and Jihyun.  She wonders what her brother thinks is happening to his friend, if Jumin would happily put things as they were when they were 17, before everything was so fucked up.

“Awfully introspective for a person hungover from two glasses of wine,” she chastises herself and gathers up Darryl’s leash.

She’s in the elevator when her phone rings.

“You woke up!” Luciel chirps into the receiver.

“Barely,” she groans.

“But any day you wake up is a good day right Six?” She can hear how forced his cheer is and she knows he’s got a point he’s working towards.

“Debatable,” she hides her eyes from the sun burning through the lobby doors.  “Are you calling me Six now?”

“It’s something I’m trying out,” he chuckles and she can hear someone groan in the background.

“Is Jihyun with you?” She’s not sure why she asks.

“No,” he says his voice losing its playfulness.

“Shit, I wanted to ask him how much we drank, did he maybe take the recyling out when he left? I can’t feel this shitty from two glasses of wine.”

“Well,” Seven draws the word out playfully but she can tell he’s not happy, “The good news is that you aren’t sick from two glasses of wine.”

“Seven,” she groans.  This is the worst, what did he see last night?

“Oh, bad news, yeah?  So that,  _ well, _ I’m pretty sure V put something in your glass.”

What?! The word flashes through her mind but she can’t bring herself to say it.  She can’t make herself respond, she can’t even will her feet to move.  Jihyun had put something in her drink?

“Noelle?”

“Are you sure?” She swallows.  That was a stupid question, Seven wouldn’t have said it if he wasn’t sure.  It made too much sense, Jihyun wasn’t apologising for kissing her, he was apologising for drugging her, for—

“I didn’t, I didn’t see, uh, exactly but it looked like there was something in your glass and given the events that followed,” he trailed off.

“What events?” She holds her breath.

“Just you passing out, and him,” he trails off again.

She can feel tears welling in her eyes.  “Seven what did he do?”

“Oh, ohhh, oh no,” Seven babbles, “no, no, nothing, no not that.”

She lets out a relieved breath.

“He made a call, I don’t know, what— I think maybe something else was supposed to happen.”

“Well drug interactions are a helluva thing,” she frowns and pinches the bridge of her nose.  Noelle and Darryl go back inside.

“I don’t know what he gave you,” Seven admits, the joking tone gone.  “Whatever you’re taking in the mornings you should probably wait a day if you can.”

“Thanks Seven.”

“Don’t thank me yet, I have better news.”

“Better than telling me my ex-boyfriend definitely drugged me?  I don’t know the bar is set pretty high here.”

Seven chuckles.  “Well, I’m talking to Jumin and we think you should go visit your current boyfriend.”

“Go where with my what?”

“Oh you artistic types,” Seven drawls, “your romantic partner? You’re more persistent suitor?  The nice young man with a ponytail you were making kissy faces at in a parking garage?”

“You want me to go to Zen’s right now?”

“I want you to pack your bag,” he says seriously but falls back into his usually chipper voice. “I’m in negotiations with Jumin, he’s pretending he doesn’t know you and in full big brother mode, but—”

“You want me out of this apartment?” She finishes for him.

“Bingo!”


	22. Day 7: 2

Luciel fields another counter offer from Jumin as he ends his call with Noelle.  Fuck V for telling Jumin she was sick, fuck him for whatever he’s gotten them all into, and fuck him for whatever he slipped into that glass last night.  Jumin wants to go to the apartment, is insisting he go there and help Noelle.

Jumin’s been low-key manic for a few days now, not that anyone else would have noticed but he’s been almost aggressively targeting Zen and Luciel has to wonder, given recent events, if V has been manipulating Jumin in some way.  At this rate the only person in the RFA not likely to have been manipulated by V is Yoosung.

“Lucky bastard,” Luciel mumbles.  “My depression never has  _ my _ back like that.”

Vanderwood clears their throat beside him.  “You know having me fuck with this guy is moot if you don’t finish your goddamn work on time right?”

“Yeah yeah, I’m almost there,” he groans minimizing the surveillance feed as Noelle gets off the elevator on the 14th floor.

“So’s the deadline, 707, and you know how this client feels about being punctual.”

“I remember, pink mist, I got it, God, drink your tea Mrs Vanderwood.”  He’s close to being done, he’s been close for hours now but he can’t help checking on the apartment, checking on the other members. If V would do something to Noelle, someone so close to Jumin and according to her at one time V himself, then who knows what he would have in store for the rest of them.

“This, isn’t tea,” Vanderwood spits, “it’s an abomination.”

“Try to do a pal a favor,” Luciel shrugs, his fingers already a blur.

“Do not confuse my actions,” Vanderwood says, their own fingers dance across the keyboard at a more deliberate pace.  “I’m not doing this for you, that kid’s been through enough.”

“Jeeze, Vanderwood,” Luciel chuckles, “all these years and you’ve actually got a heart?  Pretty sneaky sis.”  The bottle of iced tea bounces off his arm and he laughs harder.  Things settle down in the bunker and Luciel gets back to work properly.

He fires off a text to Noelle, telling them to go somewhere when they’re packed and wait for him or Jumin to call.

Vanderwood was not technically a hacker just like Luciel was not technically a field agent, but the Agency kept you trained and ready for any situation.  And he knew that while Vanderwood was not as talented as he was they had an old school approach to hacking that would probably catch whoever was breaking through his security off guard.  It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was enough of a counter to let him finish his work so he could survive long enough to come up with something.

Vanderwood reaches over without looking and shuts the monitor off.  “Stop watching that shit,” they grunt. “The kid’s up, they’re getting their shit together.

Luciel is finished by noon, filing his report to the boss when his RFA phone rings. Vanderwood shakes their head but he answers anyway, his stomach dropping as he slides the green talk button. “Noelle is fine,” he says, his voice shaking with nerves or rage he can’t tell.”

“She, uh, well, I don’t—”

“V, what is going on, what did you give her?  Do you even know what medications she’s on?”

“I’m sorry Luciel, it’s complicated.” There’s a sadness to his voice, more so than usual, he sounds defeated.

“Are you,” he inhales, “did you do this?”

There’s nothing for an uncomfortable moment and then V inhales.  “I, no, I— It’s complicated Luciel.  I didn’t know that, I wasn’t involved with—”

“This is bullshit,” he’s not sure why he’s talking to V like this.

“It’s not me,” V says softly, and Luciel thinks that maybe he’s crying.

“It looked like you on my screen, handing Noelle a drink with something in it.”

He inhales sharply and Luciel can hear a sob.  Another uncomfortable moment while he nervously chews the inside of his cheek waiting for a response.

“I’m trying to fix this Luciel,” he says firmly.  “She’s not going to talk to me now, I need you to tell her not to dig through the apartment not to—there are things there, just— Please believe me when I say I am on your side, I’m going to fix this.”

“Why shouldn’t we snoop V?” he asks.  It was a weird request, Noelle hadn’t even tried to open any drawers outside of the kitchen.

“It’s for your own good,” he says.  

“You know what’s going on.”

“Some of it, not all of it.” V sighs.  “I thought I had more control.”

“What does that mean,” Luciel yells.  “V you know what I’m doing right now?  Because whoever sent Noelle to that apartment is going after the special security system.”

“Luciel,” he says and there’s a tone to his voice.

“You knew?”

“I’m going to fix this, I’m –”

Luciel doesn’t wait, he ends the call and throws his phone to the floor stomping on it and shattering the screen.

“Jesus Christ,” Vanderwood snorts.

*

This was too much and for the first time in weeks, months, maybe even a year V felt like he could do something about it.  He’d felt better, and he was sure that meant he was dying but if that was all he had to look forward to he needed to try to be better.  This had gone on long enough, maybe once she’d had good intentions maybe even for Mint Eye but this was not what she said she wanted.

The gross idiot is alone when he picks V up walking from the apartment.  “I’m supposed to take you back to Savior, the Big Man says she’s worried about you.”

V grunts and gets in the car.

“So you and the chick in that apartment huh,” the gross idiot says and there’s a cordial elbow in Vs side.  “Kind of wasted an opportunity though.”

“Pull over,” V says cooly.

“Huh?”

“Just for a moment, I’m feeling sick.”

The car jerks and it’s barely a moment before the Gross Idiot has pulled over to the shoulder.

“Don’t barf in my car, man,” he almost pleads.

V adjusts himself in the seat for a moment and the big idiot turns expectantly, waiting for him to open the door or do something when V’s hand shoots out and grabs the man by the hair, he slams the big man’s head into the car door three times in quick succession before letting him go and relaxing into his seat again.  “Do not mention her again.  Do not think of her again.”

The bigger man stutters, and spits, blood dribbles from his mouth and the skin of his cheek has split from the impact.  For a minute as the gross idiot looms over him V sees Noelle’s father.  He sees all the things he should have done that day in his room and he brings his cane against the side of his head with a crack.

“Are you going to drive the car or do I have to call the Big Man?

“Hey, whatever, man,” He manages, words slurring slightly.

V watches the Gross Idiot shrink back and turn to the wheel, the side of his face already purple as it shifted from sight.  

It’s a long drive back to Magenta and V is relieved when they stop and pick up the Big Idiot and he takes over driving.  V sees his face contort at the sight of the Gross Idiot’s purple swollen face but he doesn’t say anything.  He just opens the door and offers to drive instead.

Magenta is alive when they arrive.  V isn’t sure he can remember a time when the people who lived there had moved in such droves at this time of day.  Not without a service but it was not time for that, not now.  She worked like the church, there should be no communion on this day, not at this time.

But the dilated pupils of the people he passes suggest that he could be mistaken.  

“Where is Savior right now?” He asks the closest person to him.

The woman smiles up at him. “In the sanctuary.”

“And where is the Big Man?” he asks after Saeran.

She chuckles, shrugs. “Haven’t seen him,” she singsongs.  “Not since last night.”

No that would make sense, Savior had work for him to do, that’s why Saeran had stayed behind.  He lets the woman go and she continues on her way.

He was, strictly speaking, not allowed in the Sanctuary uninvited. Especially not past the small parlor where she ate and judging from the faces he passed, even security had been urged to take Rika’s chemical communion.  He pushes on, desperate to get there before he loses his nerve, before he sees Saeran or someone with their wits about them notices him somewhere he shouldn’t be.

The guard by the door smiles at him stupidly when he approaches. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

V ignores him, pushing the decorative wooden door to Rika’s room open.

“H-Hey,” the man yells standing up and reaching for him but V continues in.

Rika is laid out on her bed, her golden hair spread across the purple sheets, a thin shimmer of green around dilated pupils as her eyes shift lazily towards him. He’s not shocked that she’s naked, nor is he shocked by the nudity surrounding her, not the naked woman combing through her hair on the pillow, or the man with his head resting against her thigh, not even the tableau of nudity kneeling at the head of the bed.

“What did you make me give her,” he whispers, his eyebrows knitting together; resolve faltering under her soft gaze.  “It wasn’t— She didn’t respond the way— was it different?”

The corners of her mouth curl into a joker’s grin even as she forces her eyes to look sad. “Did she die?”

His heart sinks and he finds the anger that had propelled him here. “No, she’s alive, I don’t think— Rika, was she supposed to die?” He swallows hard.  “Was I supposed to kill her?”

Peals of tinkling laughter spill from her pretty mouth as she pushes herself to sit.  The bodies on her bed shifting like a fleshy wave to accommodate the movement.  She taps an empty space beside her.  “Sit with me.”

“Rika, please,” he says softly.

“I’ll talk to Saeran,” she coos, “don’t worry, he’ll fix this and then we can discuss your reward.”

His reward.  He can’t remember, why it was he wanted to die so badly.  The urge certainly still nags at the back of his mind but right now it seems like something more important is happening.

“I can’t Rika,” he starts but she holds up a hand.

“Savior,” she corrects him, an edge to her voice

“Rika,” he says slowly, searching her face, wondering when this had gotten so bad.

Her jaw sets and she narrows her eyes at him. “Dog,” her smile turns cruel, “She was weak, I am not her.”

His eyes narrow and he bites the inside of his lip.  He had to fix this.  “I’m sorry, Rika,” he says softly and a lamp crashes against the heavy door as it closes behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, this was all written prior to V route even being announced, I'm not planning to change how I'm writing Mint Eye, V, or Rika to reflect any new information so there should be no concern about spoilers in that regard. Any similarities are just my lucky guesses.


	23. Da Seven: 3

“I suppose you’ve spoken to Luciel this morning,” Jumin asks.  There’s a hint of concern in his voice.

“What did Jihyun say to you,” she asks instead of; did your best friend tell you he roofied me last night

“He said I should know you were the new member and he stopped by Rika’s apartment to catch up.  He said you both drank too much.”

“Don’t sound so excited Jumin,” she groans. There are layers upon layers of lies going on and she’s still stuck on Jihyun actually drugging her.  She wonders if the alcohol and her medications hadn’t made her pass out what would have happened.  Jihyun wasn’t the hacker, beyond photoshop he was terrible with computers,                                              but she couldn’t fathom what he had to do with them, and what she had to do with any of it.

“I’m not excited,” Jumin snaps, bringing her back to reality.  “Simply nostalgic.”

“That’s unlike you,” she laughs.  A hot shower had helped with the muscle pain, coffee and water had brought her headache around to bearable levels.

“Luciel will not let me come to you.”

“I don’t need an escort, Jumin.”

“Where should I send my car?” She can hear him rolling his eyes.

“I’ll go to the rehearsal space, I need to check my audition time, I’ll leave my car there.”

“You should leave Darryl with Driver Kim, he can stay with me until we’ve sorted this out.”

“That’s very nice Jumin but what about Libby?”

“Elizabeth III will stay with Assisstant Kang.”

“Oh my god Jumin,” Noelle groans.  “I’ll call Jaehee, and if it’s alright, he can stay with her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Jumin she actually likes my dog, and I live 2 units away, she can put him in his own crate at night, it’s better than him staying with you and you making your wife stay with your assistant.”

“I am not married to my cat.”

“Tell that to the mountain of requests to draw her in a gown that you’ve sent me.”

“I have not.”

“You need to turn your phone off when you drink.” She laughs as he grumbles at his phone and hangs up on her.

She moves the few bags she’s brought with into her car and is just back in the apartment to gather Darryl and her laptop when her phone rings again.

“Why are you still in the apartment?” Seven asks, he sounds annoyed.

“Sorry,” she says not looking to the cameras.  “It was a rough morning you know?  I’m leaving now I was just talking to Jumin.”

“So you’ve worked something out?”

“He’s sending a car to the rehearsal space.”

Seven sighs and she can hear the worry in that simple sound.  Jumin worrying about her was one thing, even Jaehee made sense, but these people, Zen, Seven, Yoosung?  They had all taken to her so quickly, she usually didn’t give people time to warm up to her, it was new and not totally unwelcome.

“You’re still standing there,” she can hear the smirk in his voice.

“I’ll get moving,” she laughs, “sorry.”

“No it’s ok, just a— this is kind of convenient.  Can you do me a favor?”

“Shoot.”

“Check the desk drawers.”

“Hmm,” she pulls the drawers, three of them open but the big drawer, the second one she tries is locked.  “Is there a key around here for this one?”  She points to the one that won’t open and pulls again to emphasize.

“Shit,” he spits.  “Why was he worried about you snooping if the drawer was locked?”

*

Luciel watches a wicked smile cross Noelle’s lips and Vanderwood snorts over his shoulder.

“You want in this drawer right now?” They ask.

“I’ll have to come over there after you leave,” he shrugs at the monitor even though they can’t see him.

Noelle just giggles on the other end of the line and reaches into their hair.  He watches jaw agape as they snap the bobby pin and pick the drawer lock.

“So don’t take this the wrong way,” he says after Vanderwood has closed his mouth for him, “but I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“Well get in line lover boy, I’ve already kissed two of you assholes this week.”

“So you’re saying there’s a chance,” he laughs and Vanderwood groans.

Noelle holds the papers in the drawer up to the camera and all joviality is lost.  “I don’t know what this is,” they frown.  “It looks kind of familiar.”

“Shit, Noelle, take that with you OK?”

“Yeah, are you alright, have you seen this before?”

“Noelle I need to think, I need— You need to leave, don’t go back to the apartment unless you’ve seen me in person ok?”

“Yeah,” they say, giving the nearest camera curious look.  “Ok.”

“You’re in a little deep 707,” Vanderwood laughs and tousles his hair roughly.

“I’m not really in love with her,” Luciel says shaking them off.

Vanderwood smirks.  “No, because the kid is in love with your actor friend.”

Seven frowns.  “So I think I have a plan, but I’m going to need your help again.”

*

“You don’t mind?” Noelle’s voice is soft and curious on the other end of the phone.

“Not at all, thank you very much for saving me from all that cat hair, honestly,” Jaehee chuckles.  

“He’ll be crated in my apartment when you get home from work, if Jumin tries to keep you late remind him you’re babysitting.”

“You sound better than I expected.”

“Oh,” Noelle’s voice changes and Jaehee curses herself.  “I had too much to drink with some friends last night.”

“A going away party?” Jaehee asks.

“I guess you could call it that.”

“Could I complain to you for a moment?” Jaehee adds quickly, changing the topic.  

“Of course, what has Jumin done now?”  Noelle’s voice picks up

Jaehee lets loose all the frustration over this new account, a coffee and pastry shop she admits she’s gotten more than a little personally invested in.  She rattles on about Mr. Han’s request for her to phone it in, in favor of another cat project, and her desire to do exactly the opposite of that.

“You know he’s got nothing going on the cat food right now, he says he wants to talk to someone about modeling for it but I’ve already told him we’re swamped in the art department,” Noelle groans.

“He wants the catfood pitch ready for tomorrow,” she groans. “The coffee pitch is due today, it’s all I’ve been working on but Mr. Han is sure that his father will give up on this project when he becomes bored of his new girlfriend.”

“The old man has never gotten bored of a good investment, that’s some bullshit,” Noelle laughs.  “You keep on with the coffee pitch, don’t worry about the catfood, I’ll deal with it.”

“You said you were busy, and you’re leaving for your skating camp—”

“Don’t worry about it, Jaehee,” Noelle chuckles, “it’s thanks for keeping my baby company this weekend.”

*

Zen frowns at his phone, he had to have read that wrong.  Elle was coming here, Elle was on her way here right now?  This was another one of Seven’s jokes right?  After all the bad news he didn’t think he could take this being a joke.

[Zen]: I’m going to open my door and it’s going to be you in a dress and a wig isn’t it?   
[70]: You wound me; God of Matchmaking 707 would never be so cruel.   
[Zen]: What about the pictures of your maid?”   
[707]: I am flattered, but you aren’t my type.   
[Zen]: Is Elle really coming here?

It’s probably the third time he’s asked.

His phone rings almost immediately.  “She’s definitely on her way to being on her way.”

Zen can’t help the sigh that escapes his lips.

Seven chuckles before becoming uncharacteristically serious.  “Listen, Zen.  You have to promise me that you won’t let her go outside alone, make sure if she leaves you’re with her.  If she gets in a car to go home make sure it’s Jumin’s or mine.”

“Is everything alright?” His chest feels tight; he thought Elle was coming to visit him because she was worried about him not that she was in danger.

“It’s under control,” Seven says, voice light again.  “Just being paranoid,” he chuckles.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep no big deal.  Unlike that zit on your chin buddy, you should go see about that.”

*

Luciel laughed, he wasn’t even looking at Zen right now but hearing the actor squeal before he hung up the phone was just the pick-me-up he needed.  Now that Noelle was out of the apartment he and Vanderwood had backed off, waiting to see what these Hackers had planned.

“Mint Eye,” Vanderwood mumbles watching the footage of Noelle unlocking the drawer loop on Luciel’s tablet screen.  “Do you know who that is?”

“Do you?” He snaps.

“Never heard of them,” Vanderwood shrugs sitting down on the stale smelling sofa next to Luciel and handing him a can of Doctor Pepper.

“Mrs. Vanderwood, you shouldn’t have,” Luciel smirks and clutches the can of soda to his chest.

“I regret it already.”

“I already know where they are,” Luciel says softly.  

Vandrwood’s phone vibrates.  

“Those are the coordinates, I need you to see if we have anything on them or to do with them, they’re not just hackers.”

“Why can’t you?”

“The Boss won’t question you, and hacking into our own servers takes more time than we have right now.”

*

“Mr. Kim,” Noelle smiles as the older man opens the door to Jumin’s Sedan for her.  She lays her hand on his shoulder cordially before she ducks into the back seat.  “I can’t believe you’re still driving Jumin around.”

“It’s very nice to see you again Ms. Lee,” Driver Kim says when he takes his seat behind the wheel.

“Has Jumin been behaving himself?” She asks with a slight laugh.

Driver Kim gives her a smirk back. “You know your brother Ms. Lee.”

“Well then I hope he pays you well,” she laughs.

Driver Kim chuckles in response and her phone rings.

“Hello,” she says coyly.

“Are you really coming here,” Zen asks.

“I’m in Jumin’s car right now, I don’t know where you live, I don’t know how far away I am.”

“You sound excited,” he laughs.

“You’re one to talk,” she snorts.

“I can’t wait to see you, finally.” His voice is soft, dreamy.  “You have to promise me you won’t be disappointed ok?”

She giggles a little. “I don’t know how I could be.” She can almost hear him shrug. “I promise I won’t be if you promise not to be mad?”

He laughs. “I don’t think I could ever be mad at you.”

She’s surprised when they stop in front of a modest four unit apartment building.  Driver Kim opens her door and smiles to her as she steps out.

“Mr. Han suggests that you leave your things with me and I will come back for you this evening.”

“Come back and take me where?” She asks, eyebrows raised.

“To the penthouse, of course.”

“Of course,” she snorts.  Noelle leans in the car and ruffles Darryl’s ears.  “Be good, dummy.”  She grabs one of her bags and her guitar case and smiles at Jumin’s driver.  “Please just leave the rest of my things at my apartment with Darryl, Ms. Kang will get him in a few hours.”

“As you say,” he smiles at her and she hears the car pull away as she steps up to the door for Zen’s basement apartment.

He has to know she’s there, he knew she was coming; she knew if it had been reversed she’d be waiting at the door.  Was he as nervous as she was?  That’s ridiculous, she chastises herself.  Why should she be nervous, she’d spent time with Zen, she’d kissed him.  He didn’t know that but that was not the point.

She reaches to knock on the door but stops herself.  What if he’s angry she lied to him?  Would he understand that Seven wouldn’t let her say anything.  Would he forgive her for his broken ankle when he realizes Jumin was trying to bait her?  

Noelle smoothes out her clothes, she hadn’t even had a moment to think, she wasn’t dressed for meeting her potential boyfriend, she was still dressed like a hung over college kid in sweats and a baggy tshirt, she was wearing her binder.  God this was going to be so overwhelming for Zen.

She raises a hand and knocks.


	24. Day Seven: 4

The car had dropped Elle off and left two whole minutes ago.  He’d watched.  Jumin’s big black Sedan had stopped at the curb, someone in sweats with bright red hair had gotten out, with two bags and the car had driven away.  He was standing by the door waiting for them to knock.  

Three minutes had passed now, it felt like thirty.  Was she getting cold feet.  Did the modest apartment put her off.  He almost called her. Then he heard the knock and he practically threw the door open.

“Surprise?” No stood in front of him, an awkward smile on her face, a duffle bag over her shoulder and a guitar on her back.  She held her shoulders in a shrug and waited for him to respond.

He could only stand there, dumb and staring.

She lowers her shoulders slowly. “I’m really sorry.”

“You’re...” he trails off.

“The most sorry person you have ever met,” she says hopefully.

“You’re Elle?” He finally manages.

She nods.  “Remember I told you my real name?”  

He nods slowly, and then, “I kissed you,” he almost yells it and then he realizes they’re still standing in the doorway and he grabs her by the arm dragging her inside and closing the door.

“Yeah, so about that—”

“I kissed you,” he says again, quieter.

She nods and he can see the corners of her mouth twitch as she tries not to smile. “Seven kept reminding me I absolutely could not tell you.”

“Seven knows we kissed,” he gasps a little.

“You’re not mad?”

Zen looks at her, the way she’s almost wringing her hands her bags still on her back like he could ask her to leave at any moment, she’d known him, known they’d kissed, known the whole time and she was still nervous about seeing him today.  He couldn’t help himself he pushes the dufflebag off of her shoulder and pulls her against him sealing her lips with a kiss.

Her arms wrap around him her hands finding the bare skin of his back where his shirt didn’t quite meet his pants and her fingers dance along his spine as his tongue pushes past her lips.  She sighs into his mouth as he cups her cheek and backs her up against the wall where her guitar makes a soft sound inside it’s bag.

Her tongue strokes and teases his as she brings one hand up to tangle and tug at his pony tail and he breaks from the kiss as she tugs his head back letting out a soft moan.

“I guess that’s a no,” she smirks, her fingers tracing circles on the small of his back..

“I’m relieved,” he says pressing his forehead to hers.  His big hands move from her face to her hips and his thumbs caress the skin above her waistband.

“Come on,” she says with a playful push to his chest, “you should sit down or show me your apartment.”

There’s an edge of nerves to her voice and he tries not to dwell on it, tries not to worry that he’s making her uncomfortable or that she’s disappointed in some way.  She makes him sit down.

“Are you feeling better then?’ he asks when she walks into his kitchen.

“I’m not a hundred percent, I’m still kind of dizzy I guess,” she pauses at his refrigerator. “How did you know I was sick?”

“Jumin,” he shrugs.

“God,” she says with mock irritation, “he needs to keep his nose out of my business or I’m going ask the groomer to make Libby a dinosaur next time he needs someone to take her.”

Zen laughs, a great howl of a laugh and stops abruptly. “Wait, how well  _ do _ you know Jumin.”

“Uhh,” she says opening the fridge door, “First why are the only things in your fridge Beer and Mustard?  Didn’t you go shopping?”

“Don’t change the subject,” he frowns.

“Do you remember when you said Jumin reminded you of your brother and I said me too?”

Zen nods and watches her look for a glass and walk to the sink.

“Well that’s because he  _ is _ my brother,  _ sort of. _ ” She turns on the tap as she talks, shrugs like she’s trying to convince herself it’s not big deal. “For a couple years.”

“Jumin Han does not have a sister,” Zen says confidently.

“Well yeah,” she nods and sinks into the old sofa next to him. “But he almost had a stepsister for like 3 years when we were teenagers.”

“He’s never mentioned you,” Zen says seriously.

“It’s better that way,” she smiles kissing him on the cheek.  “There were rumors about us, totally false rumors, but they still get brought up so we try not to be seen together too often, but I guess that’s less of an issue now.”

“Hmm, why’s that?”

“Seven said he took care of it.  I mean I’m sure people who knew us will remember but at least nothing shows up when you search us anymore,” she shrugs.

“What were the rumors?”

Noelle folds her legs underneath her and leans into him.  “You don’t really want to know, they weren’t true anyway, they just, ugh.” She groans, any way she looked at it today was going to get heavier than she wanted.

“Just what?” He asks pulling her into his lap.

“What about your leg?” She asks trying to change the subject.

“It’s fine, I’m thinking about taking the cast off myself.  They just what?” He presses.

“Ugh,” she groans.  “They were how my Dad managed to take me from my Mom.  I’d rather not talk about it.  Jumin and the Old Man were good to us and it fucked a lot of stuff up,” and killed my Mom, she thinks, and shakes her head.  Some things could wait for a second date, like the family history of clinical depression.

“Sorry,” he says hugging her to him.

She rests against him for a while, his thumb tracing circles on her hip, her forehead resting against his temple.  His hand slips beneath her shirt and he starts to trail lazy kisses along her throat.  She sighs shifting slightly to run her fingers through his hair.  His fingers walk along her skin, trailing up her side, down her back, he toys with the fabric of her binder.

Her breath catches in her throat and she finds herself putting a hand to his chest, scrambling to her feet, “N-no, stop.” She says catching her breath.

“I’m sorry!” Zen shakes his head and starts to stand.  “I didn’t mean to rush you, I’m—”

“No,” she shakes her head and gently stops him from standing.  “It’s not,” she stands there, both hands on his shoulders leaning over him.  She wants nothing more than to kiss him, to leave all this behind her.  To forget about Jihyun, and Jumin, and everything else happening right now, to just let whatever this was play out.

One of Zen’s hands covers hers, his garnet eyes searching her face earnestly. “Noelle, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she straightens and takes a deep breath.  “It’s just— I think that I really like you.”

The concern on his face is replaced by a goofy grin.  “I think I really like you too,” he laughs.

“Zen,” she sighs, “Hyun,” she corrects, trying out his given name.  He cocks his head and looks at her like a puppy.  “I’ve never done this right, I think,” she offers, “I pick the wrong time, or the wrong people, I don’t know.”

His fingertips brush against hers and she lets him hold her hand, while she stands in front of him.

“I don’t exactly identify as a woman,” she says it quickly, the verbal equivalent of tearing off a bandage.  She squeezes her eyes shut and waits for him to drop her hand, or ask her what that means.  But he doesn’t let her go, he pulls her closer to where he sits and when she opens her eyes he’s watching her carefully from the place on his sofa she’s pushed him into.

“Are you telling me that you’re a man?” There’s no sarcasm in his voice, no judgment.  His brows knit together as he watches her face.

She swallows.  “Sometimes,” she says, “sort of, not a lot, mostly I’m just not anything, just this,” she gestures to herself, the loose shirt, and plain gym pants notwithstanding. “Androgynous,” she tries, “non-binary, I guess.  Genderfluid?” She sighs.  “Mostly I feel androgynous, sometimes I feel more one than the other, mostly somewhere between femme and this though, and I just wanted to get that out in the open before anything happened and—”

“And what?” he asks softly.

She laughs bitterly, “and I have to explain this and you I don’t know, make a face or, I don’t know, act like a dick?”

He’s quiet for what feels like a long time, searching her face with those striking deep red eyes.  “Have I,” he pauses looking for the right phrasing, “do you want me to use different words for you?”

“What?” She blinks for a minute.  No one had ever asked her that before.  Jumin had been unsurprised when she came out to him but even he hadn’t thought to ask her for her pronouns, not until more than a day later after he’d done some research and under the assumption that she would have told him anyway.

“Some of my fans write me about their problems and they use different pronouns but their friends or their family don’t or won’t use them, so do you want me to do that?”

“I, uh, I don’t know,” she admits.  “I don’t really have a preference, the agency has been really kind about using they/them but I uh, I don’t really care. I know some people do.  Most people probably but I don’t, really.”

Zen leans forward on the couch and pulls her back into his lap. “So what do I need to know?” He asks hugging her to him.  “Want to give me the dos and don’ts?”

She laughs nervously and presses a kiss between his eyes.  “I uh, I don’t really know, I’ve never gotten this response before.”

“Really?” His expression darkens, “what usually happens?”

She snorts.  “Skepticism mostly,  _ well I don’t get it but _ , from people who want to keep seeing me naked.  I had a girlfriend who was fine with it until I showed up to a party like this.”

“Like what,” he asks, checking her out, “was she mad about sweatpants?”

She laughs and pulls her shirt tight against her body.  “With my binder on.  It uh, it hides my chest.”

“You wear this a lot,” he says, running his fingers along the outline of it.  “I thought I was crazy the night we kissed, that there was so much of you I’d never noticed before.”

Noelle laughs.  “No not crazy, there’s a good reason for that.”

“Hmm,” he laughs, and raises his eyebrow at her, his face is already going red when he starts to speak, “do you, t-take it off?”

She laughs and buries her face in his shoulder.

“I didn’t mean that we wer—”

“It’s ok,” she says when she can breathe again.  “I do sometimes, it depends on why I’m wearing it, sometimes it’s just Aesthetic, I wear it to work a lot, the dinosaurs there take me more seriously the more neutrally I present. But sometimes I’m really dysphoric so I wouldn’t want to take it off unless I had to, and if I had to I probably wouldn’t be incredibly comfortable with any  _ attention _ .”

He nods as if he’s taking it all in.

“Today I would leave it on,” she adds, Jihyun fresh in her mind.

He nods again.  “Dysphoric is—”

“I have issues with my body sometimes; I didn’t used to, before I— before everything I was shaped differently, it was easier to be androgynous, I was flatter and I didn’t really have hips and then—”

“And then what?” He asks. She’s slid down off his lap, wedged between his hip and the arm the couch, her legs resting over his.  He’s cradling her head against his shoulder as she talks, his other hand drawing soothing spirals on her back.

“I don’t want to freak you out.” She sighs.  “I came here to cheer you up not to unload my baggage on you.”

“We all have baggage No, maybe together we’re a matching set.”

She snorts.

“Too much?”

“Super cheesy,” she giggles.  “I’ve sort of unpacked a lot though, can we, can we not go there today.”

He reaches out to touch her face, his fingers cup her neck, his thumb rests against her cheek and he moves to kiss her, his lips brushing against hers when her phone rings.  She giggles again when he mimes throwing her phone across the room but her face falls when she looks at the screen.

“Who is it, is it Seven?” He asks worried.

She shakes her head and answers. “I am so so sorry...I know...No no, I can’t, I meant to call...you called who...really Nina?...No I really truly can’t, I don’t even—... You have no idea how.... yes that guy....please don’t lecture me... I told you I couldn’t commit just yet...Ple—...I swear I will be there consistently if you just give me a few more weeks... Jesus Christ Nina I know...you can’t say that you have no idea what just happened...come on.”

Zen watches the one sided conversation continue, Noelle stands in his kitchen with her back to him as her voice gets smaller and smaller, when she turns around, shoving her phone back into her pocket he’d almost swear there were tears in her eyes.

“Are you alright?”

She shrugs.  “I just forgot something kind of important and my best friend, my life preserver, my one and only no-questions-asked cheerleader just told me she’s really disappointed in me, which wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t translate to an entire class of children were counting on you and you fucked up.”

“Are you a teacher?”

“She sighs.  “I’m a skater, sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“I took a break and last night I went back to the rink for one of the classes I used to coach and I stupidly made a promise to a bunch of kids that I’d be at their skills test today, but I forgot.” She covers her face and takes a deep breath.

“Because you got to come see me?”

She nods, instead of full out lying, instead of telling him about everything happening at the apartment or with Jihyun.

“Could we still go is there time to make it up?”

She smiles.  “I wish there was, even if the class wasn’t over already my skates are in my trunk and it’s parked on the other side of town at the rehearsal space, and I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to stay here until Seven tells me otherwise.”

“I got that impression too,” he nods.  “Is something going on I don’t know about?”

She shrugs.  “I really wish I knew.”

*

Fucking idiots.  

Saeran didn’t have time for this bullshit.  He knew somewhere in Magenta Saviors dog was stalking about, having finally bitten back and now this.  Those fucking idiots had lost the bait. Not to mention whatever Luciel was doing here.  

“She was just gone,” the idiot on the other line mumbles.

“How do you lose a giant red head?” He growls, his fists clench and he starts to cycle through the CCTV feed where he knew they’d last seen them.

“She was in her car, she went into the building, you told us to keep farther back.”

He watches the warning on his screen indicate that his most recent attempt to break Luciel’s special security had been countered, one of several phones on his desk begins to vibrate violently and nowhere on his feed does he see the bait.  “And it’s impossible that they’re still in that building?”

There’s quiet murmuring from the two men on the other end of the phone.  “The car was full of stuff and now it’s not,” he says finally.  His voice shakes and Saeran grimaces.

“For fucks sake,” Saeran slams a hand down on one of the phones and grinds it down on the shattered screen.  “Stay the fuck there, one of you on the car one of you on the building, I don’t give a flying fuck how obvious you are, fucking figure out where they went.”

He drops the phone, not caring if it broke too, there were plenty of others, and examines the hand he’d used to crush the other, tiny shards of glass stung the edge of his palm, and he could feel the itchy irritation but not quite the pain he’d hoped for.  He runs his thumb over it, pushing the splinters farther into his skin.

He ignored the vibrating phone in front of him, the blue haired dog had been texting him since he’d gotten back.  Begging him to stop; they could leave together, telling him they could get help, they could end this.  This was home, he was powerful here, Saeran didn’t want to end anything except Luciel.

He’s almost an hour into the special security system when the CCTV catches his eye, someone getting into the bait’s car, his phone is ringing as he reaches for it.  “Yeah I see it, keep up with them this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week there's smut!


	25. Day Seven: 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is nsfw

“You need to sit down before you fall down,” Noelle laughs when Zen grabs her by the hand and tries to get her twirl to the music he’s playing on his phone.

“I promise, my leg feels much better,” he smiles.

“Right now, but if we both go down—” he pulls her against him and presses a quick kiss to her lips.

Noelle laughs and pushes him away playfully.  After their talk, and Nina’s call Zen had suggested they walk to the nearby store and get something to eat.  Noelle had agreed. Despite his having told her he was shopping for food the day before there didn’t seem to be anything actually edible in his apartment.

She’d been beyond relieved when he’d gone for prepackaged foods and hadn’t asked her to cook for him.  After everything she’d just dumped on him he didn’t need to know that she was also terrible in the kitchen.

“I can’t believe you bought more beer,” she snorts staring into his fridge absently.

He leans around her and grabs a can. “I don’t think you get to judge me after all those coffee drinks you bought.”

“Listen,” she says cracking one of them and pointing at him, “coffee is a recognized food group.”

“I know I didn’t do as well as you in school, but I’m positive that’s a lie,” Zen snorts pulling the tab on his beer.

Noelle laughs letting him pull her against him again.  He’d dropped the crutch the second they’d come in the door and she could see him putting weight on the cast.  When Yoosung and Jaehee had corroborated his story about super healing she’d still been suspicious but this was barely two days later.  Two days after she’d broken her ankle she hadn’t even wanted to put her foot down let alone shuffle about like her cast was the heaviest moonboot in existence.

“I guess,” Zen muses taking the can from her hand and putting it on the table with his beer, “you probably know how to waltz.”

She giggles as he carefully places a hand on her waist and is already poised with a hand on his shoulder as he begins to lead the dance. “Zen, my mother was a dancer.  She had a studio, I’ve been dancing formally since I was three, she used to make Jumin and I take ballroom lessons every Sunday.”

“Dance lessons, voice lessons, you’ve lead a charmed life Ms. Lee,” he chuckles.

She stiffens slightly. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” she says, “I know it must seem really great but Dad was in entertainment marketing and I was a product, I took the lessons and I sang when he told me because it wasn’t worth refusing, I quit as soon as Mom moved us in with the Hans.”

“Still,” he says dreamily, “it must have been nice to have your talents supported.”

She groans and drops her hand from his shoulder taking a step back and shaking her head.  “Please don’t say that, my Dad didn’t support my talent, my Dad cultivated a selling feature.  Performing a song is at best equivalent to reciting multiplication tables. At worst—”

He closes the distance between them and kisses her.  “I’m sorry, I remember, I wasn’t thinking.”

She presses herself against him, her fingers trailing up his neck and pulling the elastic out of his hair, she kisses him, running fingers through loose hair and smiling against his lips.  “I’ve wanted to do that for days.”

“Do what,” his voice shakes, her fingers in his hair drawing a purr from deep in his chest.

She presses him back against the table and he has to catch himself on the edge so that he doesn’t trip over his cast. “Take that stupid pony tail out,” her breath hot against his skin as she trails kisses along his jaw her fingers still combing and curling in his hair.

“Noelle,” he says his voice almost a growl as he grips her waist.

“Hmm,” her lips curl into a smile as she places a kiss just below his ear, the fingers of one hand gently tugging his hair as the other trails over his chest.

Something in his head screams at him to take his shirt off, to feel her hand against his skin.  He pushes himself back to his feet, serving only to press their bodies closer together when she doesn’t give.  

“You’ll wake the beast,” he warns.  He wanted to say something clever but he could barely form the words.

“I was trying to,” she whispers as her mouth covers his.  She pushes his sweater off his shoulders and tugs at the hem of his shirt, her tongue darting out to tease at his lips as she pulls away to tug it over his head.

There’s a moment when his shirt is falling to the floor that they simply look at each other with a mutual look of excited disbelief before he grabs her by the hand and leads her to his bedroom and shuts the door while she laughs.  

Her pants are already on the floor when he turns back from the door and she’s tugging her own formless t-shirt over her head.  He moves to cover the ground between them cursing the cast that slows him down.  He kisses her quickly, nipping at her bottom lip and pulling away to take her in properly. She was lovely in boxer briefs and a binder.  Her stomach was softer than he expect a slight pooling of loose skin marked with fine stretch marks, he wanted to press her into the mattress and worship each one in turn.

Noelle presses herself against him again, pulling him closer to his bed and pushing him down into it, he takes the opportunity the pull her against him and run his tongue along the curves of her abdomen before she pushes his shoulders back.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers as she straddles his thighs and he thinks he sees her blush before she drops her head to nip and lap at his collar bone.  He digs his fingers into her thick red hair, finding the clip holding it up and pulling it free, guiding her hair over one shoulder as she settles between his knees.

She kisses along the waistband of his pants, her bright green eyes trained on his face as she tugs them down just enough to free his cock.  Her tongue darts out circling the tip as she watches his face.

“B-babe,” he stammers as she grips the base of his cock and traces the underside with the flat of her tongue, “you d-don’t have to do that!”

Noelle settles back on her heels and smirks at him.  “I don’t  _ have _ to do anything,” she chuckles stroking him slowly with her hand.

He pats the bed beside him.  “At least come where I can r-reach you,” he almost begs as she bends and swirls her tongue around his tip again.

She stands up, dragging his pants farther down until they catch on his cast.  She pushes her briefs down her legs and steps out of them before climbing back onto the bed beside him.  She grips him with one hand and presses a heated kiss to his lips before turning back lavish his cock with her tongue.

The drag of her tongue is agonizingly slow as his fingers dance the length of her thigh. He bites his lip when she glances back at him and stifles a moan as she strokes him.  His fingers trace her slit and she presses her lips over his tip taking him into her mouth, groaning around him as he runs the rough pad of his finger over her clit.

She works him with her tongue as she pulls back and lets out a whine when he slips a finger inside of her, quickly adding a second curling them inside her and attempting to match her pace until she stops suddenly, her hips jerking against his hand.

“H-Hyun,” she groans and he pulls his hand away as she sits up, wiping at her chin with the palm of her hand.

“Are you sure?” He asks when she throws her leg over him.

She presses her chest against his, the fabric of her binder rough against his chest when she kisses him, her tongue pressing past his teeth to stroke his own the way she’d sucked his cock leaving him gasping for breath when she pulls away.

“Of course,” she says softly settling back.  He reaches to the table beside his bed and grabs the box of condoms there.  He’d bought them the day before on whim and was now glad for it.  He tosses it to her.

“Kind of presumptuous of you,” she teases but she pulls one out without flair or flourish and rolls it along the length of his cock before raising herself up and positioning him at her entrance.  She takes no time, makes no pretence at purity.  Once he might have thought he prefered the game of it the play of innocence but watching Noelle, he can’t bring himself to care.

She could use him like a toy and he’d say  _ thanks _ .  He watches her sink down, hot and wet around him, how quickly things were moving.  He stops her before she bottoms out, holds her there as she settles down around his tip. Not letting her take him in any farther, searching her face.  “You’re really sure you want to do this?” He asks again starting to sit up.

Noelle puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back down to the bed as she sinks down onto him, leaning over him and pressing a soft kiss to his lips.  “Jagiya,” she coos trailing kisses along his jaw and keeping her hips very still, “I want you.”

He whines when she rolls her hips.  

She sits up, braces her hands on his chest and throws her head back. He lets her set the pace, raising his hips to meet her, reveling in the breathy sighs that fall from her lips as she rides him.  She lifts her hands from his chest and he watches as she runs her hands through her own hair, the waterfall of big red curls falling halfway down her back.

“Hyun,” she mewls, “nnhg p-please.”

He sits up pulling her against him and bucking up into her and she lets out a whine.

“oh g-god.” She groans bracing herself on his shoulders as they crash against one another, his voice coming out in wordless pants and grunts.

Noelle leans back, her back arched, her hands braced behind her on his knees and he moves his hand to circle her clit with his thumb. She stammers out a few broken curses before her hips begin to stutter and buck, he feels her tighten around him and he moves to catch her as she collapses, pulling her back up and hugging her to him and he continues to fuck her through her release.

Her legs are shaking around his thighs, her forehead is pressed into his shoulder and her breathy moans are the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard as his feels his release build.  Her hands tangle in his hair again and she pulls gently, like a lever for his orgasm. He growls out her name, his pace falters but she meets him, rolling her hips against him as he falls back, taking her down with him.

*

“Is there anything else here you need me to look at?” Vanderwood grunts on the other end of the line.

“Just do one more sweep,” Seven frowns into the monitor, “make sure there’s nothing there that’s not on the blueprint I gave you.”

“Then sit here until dark so I can risk my life for your bullshit plan,” Vanderwood grouses.

“Hey, I was perfectly willing to put on that disguise and do this myself,” he laughs.

“I remember the last time you did training for this kind of reccy and I refuse to be the person trying to explain to the Boss why you fell off the 14th floor of a residential building.”

*


	26. Day 7: end

Zen can hear the music coming from somewhere in his apartment when he turns off the shower.  He slips the cover off of his cast and dresses as fast as he can.  He’s not prepared to miss a moment with Noelle. Who knew how long Jumin and Seven would let her stay with him.

When he opens the door he can see Noelle, she’s lounging on his old sunken sofa the guitar she’d brought with her on her lap singing softly.  He moves slowly, stepping carefully not to startle her.  

_ So I, I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up, And this woman was singing my song, Lovers in love and the other's run away, Lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay... _

Her hair is loose over one shoulder and she’s changed her clothes, the edges of her binder peeking through the sleeves of her tank top, she stares intently at the strings, her brows knit together in concentration but she stops the moment she notices him.

She doesn’t look at him, she just freezes, her voice stops and she continues to strum.

“You said it was like reciting multiplication,” he teases.

“Some of us do math without thinking about it,” she smirks, cheeks pink.

“You know you don’t have to stop singing because I’m here,” he perches on the arm of the sofa beside her.

She shrugs.  “Maybe eventually, I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I saw your feet.”

He lifts the guitar out of her lap and sets it back in it’s open bag.  “Come here,” he pulls her to her feet, “I want to show you something.”

Zen grabs his crutch and leads her to a staircase at the back of his building.  She fusses over him the whole way up. She stops once to scold him when he pretends to stumble backwards, slapping him on the shoulder when she realizes he was joking.

“Sit here,” he says, the excitement from his apartment faded to something like reverence as he pulls an old plastic patio chair across the roof towards her. She does what he says and he rests his hand on her shoulder as he stares up at the early evening stars.  “I’m so happy that you came.”

Noelle laughs.  

“I mean it,” he insists.  “You know, I mentioned my brother earlier.”

“The one Jumin reminds you of?”

He nods.  “I didn’t go too much into it; I used to be really close to him when I was little.  I think it was because there was a big age gap between us.  We’re ten years apart.  I guess he thought I was cute.”

Noelle smiles and thinks about her sisters.  Small and sweet, they way they look up at her with equal parts mischief and reverence.  He doesn’t look at her.  His hand tightens on her shoulder as he stares off at the stars above them.

“When I was little,” he continues, “I never knew I was good looking.  My parents always told me I looked ugly.” He pauses when she gasps, she can see him frown at the sky.  “They’re both really conservative teachers.” He explains as if it excuses them. “They told me that on purpose thinking I’d be offered a lot of temptation because of my looks.  But their words  _ hurt _ . Thankfully my brother always told the truth.”

“Hyun,” she starts but he squeezes her shoulder tighter and she waits for him to finish.

“He told me that getting attention isn’t something bad, it’s something to be proud of.”

“You must have really looked up to him,” she says softly, covering his hand with her own.

“Yeah I did.” He stops for a minute as if he might leave it there.  Noelle gets up and wraps her arms around his waist and rests her head against his shoulder.  “I thought he knew me more than my parents. It’s stupid now that I think about it, he was so much older than me,” he sighs, it might be the saddest sound she’s ever heard. He mumbles, “No way he could have understood me.”

She hugs him tighter and he leans against her.

“We started to grow apart in middle school when I found out how much I loved to sing.  I thought he’d support me but I was wrong,” Zen speaks absently, a stream of consciousness.  He doesn’t talk about his family, she could tell that and now that he was?  She feels a little guilty.  “He was a straight A student, I was the troublemaker.” She can feel a rumble through his back.  “That’s how my parents separated us, and they started treating is as if we belonged in different worlds and  _ then he started talking like them _ .

“He always told me that I wouldn’t get a job anywhere if I didn’t go to college, he badgered me about wanting my talent to be more than a hobby, I felt betrayed.” She squeezes him tighter.  She could understand that feeling. Being left to the wolves by the one person you thought could save you.  “I thought he’d recognize the kind of person I am.”

“Why did he change so suddenly?” Noelle whispers.

“I guess it was when he started to study law.  He started to think that money or opportunity was the best, _ he called me stupid.” _ The words are punctuated by an almost whimper, his hands cover hers, wrapped around his chest, and he squeezes.  “I could stand my parents not letting me do anything but I couldn’t stand him belittling me. So I ran away when I was in middle school, wandered around and came here, moved from one small theatre company to another until I met Rika.” He sighs wistfully.

“Rika?”  There’s something there she tries to ignore.  She’d never thought much of it before, when it came to Rika and Jihyun it hadn’t been her business, Jumin had only ever spoken kindly of her.  

Her brother’s opinions of women could be harsh and she respected the way he’d valued this woman but the more she gets to know the members of the RFA the more Rika seems inserted into all these lives.  Artfully inserted but still artificial, the way they still speak of her with so much reverence seemed like a sort of dependency.  Noelle chalks it up to jealousy.

“Yeah, she was one of my earliest fans.  It’s amazing that someone like her was keeping an eye on me.  I was so lucky, she was a turning point in my life.”

“She told me she knew a business man who could help.”

“Jumin,” Noelle laughs a little.  

“Yeah.  Since her boyfriend was his friend,” Noelle lets her hands fall to her sides when he says it.  He squeezes, holding her limp hands against his chest for a minute before he lets them drop, “but I didn’t want to be swayed by money so I refused.  What I hated more was that Jumin’s arrogant attitude was just like my brothers.  He reminded me of the way my brother always put money or chance above talent.”

Noelle snorts and wraps her arms around him again. “I remember that actually; he was  _ so mad _ .  You wouldn’t accept his offer to pay for your schooling and then I wouldn’t let him sponsor my skating.  You should have heard him.  I bet he thinks we were made for each other.”

Zen chuckles and winds his fingers around hers. “Hmm,” he muses, “I never thought, you must know V too.”

“Yeah,” she says, her voice monotone in an attempt not to betray anything that had happened the day before.  “It was us against the world for a while.”

“Did you know Rika too?” He asks dreamily.

She swallows and shakes her head.  “She came after,” she says, her mouth going dry.

She’s thankful when her phone chimes in her pocket and silences whatever he was about to ask her.

“Ba-ring Ba-ring,” Seven chirps when she picks up.  “Your chariot awaits.”

“What?”

Zen lets go of her hand and turns to watch her frown.

“It’s almost midnight, kiss your prince before he turns into a pumpkin,” he sing songs.

“It’s ten thirty and that’s not how the story goes,” she corrects him walking to the side of the roof that faced the street.  She can see an extravagant silver sports car parked outside the building and a red head waving up at her.

“Is that Seven?” Zen whispers over her shoulder and she nods.

“Come on Six, work with me,” he groans.  “We’re on a timer here, are you in?”

Noelle looks between the man three floors down and the one with his hands on her hips and sighs.

“Yeah I guess,” she says resigned.

“Do you have to go?” Zen whispers.

“Tell Lovely Zenny that you’re going back to the apartment and meet me outside.”

“Fine.” Noelle hangs up without saying goodbye and turns to throw her arms around Zen’s neck.  “Ugh he says I have to go back now.”

“Oh no!” Zen says suddenly.

“What?” She asks pressing a lazy kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“We should have rehearsed for your audition, it’s soon right?”

Noelle laughs. “I’m so sorry I meant to tell you. I don’t need you, I’m going to read for Hamlet instead.”

“You don’t need me?” He clutches at his chest dramatically and Noelle cackles as she moves towards the stairs.  “And I was prepared to do so much to help you, I learned,” he stops at the top of the stairs and frowns trying to find the word.  “You know,” he laughs, “that whatever, that beat th—”

“Iambic pentameter you big goof,” she snorts.

“Yeah I learned that  _ for you _ .”

“Actually,” Noelle says when they’re back in his apartment and she’s gathering her things.  “There is one thing you could do for me.”

“Name it Princess.”

Noelle frowns and shakes her head.  “Ok two things; don’t call me that again and uh,” she walks up to him and grabs him by the hips and then eyes him up and down. “Do you have a suit I could borrow?  Something black maybe?”

Zen chuckles.  “I think so why don’t you check my closet.”

*

**_And you said that I was naive, And I thought that I was strong, I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave", Oh but now I know that I was wrong, 'Cause I missed you..._ **

_ Noelle had been playing this song on the guitar his mother had given her for the past week, he’d seen the magazines, and he knew what her father was trying but there was nothing he could do about it but be there if she needed him.   _

_ He’d seen the picture, everyone had by now, he’d insisted he would make a statement.  How could that be Jumin, it was his car.  His father had tried to talk him out of it, but it hadn’t mattered.  No one had listened.  He contacted the Han’s lawyer and was told that nothing he could say would be enough. _

_ “You’re too close to Jumin, no one will believe you’re not covering for them.” _

_ “Noelle has been my girlfriend for two years, everyone knows that,” he’d argued. _

_ “And now everyone knows that you were just covering for them,” the lawyer stated, done with this line of reasoning.   _

_ The reporters he contacted had said much the same.  The angle was bland, no one would buy it. So he was forced to pick every day, would he spend time with his best friend or his girlfriend, and watch the one he choose brood over the other. _

_ They lay on the hood of his car watching the clouds while Noelle strums that song, humming along but not singing, never really singing more than a line or two, even now and he’s not sure what is worse; her playing this song on repeat for hours or when she does stop and try to talk about it. _

_ The music stops and there’s the clatter of her guitar falling to the ground. “Fuck.” _

_ He reaches out and takes her hand as fast as he can, squeezing it tightly, reminding her he’s there. _

_ “We should run away,” she says moving closer to him. _

_ “Hmm, should we?”  Everyone seemed to be convinced that the Hans would deal with it, they kept saying there was nothing to worry about. _

_ Noelle shrugs.  “I don’t know, we could though, I have some money we could go somewhere until this is over, take Jumin with us.” _

_ “Wouldn’t that just make things worse?” _

_ Noelle sits up, the hood of the car popping and shifting as she crosses her legs and frowns down at him. “It’s just a fantasy; you’re not supposed to ruin it with logic.” She slides off the car and picks her guitar up off the ground. _

She didn’t play that song the last night she’d come to him.  Begging him not to tell anyone she was with him, her duffel bag and guitar on her back.  He thought she’d come straight from the studio but there was no car pulling away when he opened the door for her.

She’d stuck uncharacteristically close to him that night, his parents were away again and it was just the two of them playing house.  She’d talked about where they would live after school while he cooked for her. The apartment they’d have, she’d strummed nothing songs. Things she made up as she talked sitting between his knees in his mother’s overgrown music room.

“Vines,” she’d laughed, “we’d have vines inside, just a wall of cared for green leaves, maybe in the dining room.”

He hadn’t realized until after.  Not until long after she’d thrown open his window and flung herself through.  Long after her father had tossed him aside, and threatened her.  

“If you even think about my daughter again,” he’d whispered driving him into the desk chair, “I will ruin her.”

It wasn’t until long after he’d sat in that chair, too horrified by the sense of righteousness in that statement to lift a finger when he watched him slap her, long after she was drug out of his room with that look on her bloodied face that he’d even looked in the bag she’d set down by his closet.

That was when he knew she’d meant to run away, that she’d come to say goodbye.  A change of clothes, a jacket, and her Jewelry box was all that she’d packed.

V still had the things she’d left at his parent’s house the night her father had taken her away.  The duffel bag, untouched except to move it, the guitar his mother had given her with it’s broken string from the door hitting it when her father had thrown it open.  He’d kept them in his storage space, they were on a shelf behind Hyun’s motorcycle.

He should have called her when her father died, should have gone to the funeral and explained, maybe this would never have happened.  He should have been there for her when she joked about running away.  What would his life be if there had only been Noelle?

He tries one more time to get through to Saeran, hoping that the sweet scared child he used to be still existed somewhere inside the monster Rika had created.  The sun was still bright enough he could see a little, and the glasses he’d stolen from one of her supplicants helped enough he thought he could probably drive at least until dusk.  They didn’t hide the cars from him, no one expected the blind dog to try to drive.

He didn’t know where he would go, he couldn’t go home, and he couldn’t go to Jumin just yet.  He would pick a direction and drive until he felt it was no longer safe to do so and then he would figure something out.  

  
  



	27. Day 8: 1

Noelle had spent the whole drive back to the bunker on their phone snorting with laughter.  

“Look at you,” he grumbled playfully, “you hussy, you’re sexting him right next to me.”

“I am not,” they snorted, “we’re 10 minutes away and Echo Girl is already having a fit on her twitter.”

“Ohh sounds really exciting, is she upset about something political?”

Noelle cackles.  “She was arguing with Zen, he was probably asking her to leave.  Jesus she must have started tweeting from the yard.” Noelle snorted again and started to read, “Zen invited me to his house alone in the middle of the night. Whatever.”

“You should tweet her that picture you took,” he chuckled.

“Oh my god.” Noelle had smiled a mischievous smile and set to work on their phone.

It was well after midnight when Vanderwood had gotten to the bunker.  Noelle had plugged their phone in and paced for a while before giving up and running through a series of simple stretches and exercises in the small open space between Luciel’s living room and kitchen while they dutifully recited Shakespeare and Luciel wondered if this was what normal people did when their lives were in danger.

“I hope you know I’m not missing my audition tomorrow,” they were shouting across the bunker when the alarm chirps that the gate had been opened.

“That would be the maid,” he smiles as the door swings open.

“Why does your maid look like a low budget version of me with a flashier wardrobe?” Noelle laughs.

“You told me you weren’t picking the kid up until tomorrow,” Vanderwood throws the wig on the floor and kicks it away from them.

“I was concerned for my good friend’s virtue; I thought I would pick Six up before anything untoward happened.” Luciel holds his cross in both hands reverently. “I am but an agent of the lord.”

Vanderwood and Noelle make derisive noises.

“Well you’ve disappointed the lord,” Noelle frowns putting their hands on their hips.

“Oh my god,” Vanderwood groans as Luciel throws himself out of his chair in mock horror.

“Zen’s virtue!” he whines, “how could you.”

Noelle laughs.

“Don’t encourage him,” Vanderwood groans, “I can’t believe you find this kind of thing funny, you’ve certainly changed, Lee.”

Luciel sits up from where he’d been crawling across the floor.  He reaches out beneath the end table nearest him and pulls an open bag of chips out from under it while Noelle takes a few steps back to properly inspect Vanderwood.

“I do know you don’t I?” They frown.

“Ms. Lee,” Vanderwood says affecting a slightly more formal English accent than their usual speaking voice, “I hope you know that I am not just your English teacher, should you find yourself in a questionable situati—”

“Holy fucking hell,” Noelle hollers and Luciel throws the bag of chips in faux surprise.  “You were so creepy, we used to laugh about the weird shit you said, holy shit.”

“You posed as an English teacher,” Luciel laughs.  

“I didn’t pose,” Vanderwood growls, “I was an English teacher that was my cover then. You’ve got masters in Software Engineering, I’ve got a PHD in English literature.”

“And now you’re a Secret Agent,” Noelle whispers.

*

This was bad, it could be worse but it was still bad.  Zen is sitting on the train back from the hospital where he’d insisted they take his cast off and he’d already gotten 3 calls from his agent and another 2 from reporters. Jaehee had been texting him non-stop and a number of fans had tagged him in tweets ranging from accusatory to curious.

The saving grace had been that something had possessed Noelle to take a photo and then post it in a small tweet chain response.  Little to no one had seemed to notice, including Echo Girl herself, and Noelle had been AWOL since her last tweet.

He was going to lose this role, he conceded to himself.  It was cosmic retribution for taking it in the first place, for lying about his ankle, for thinking he deserved it rather than actually earning it.  He would have to start from the bottom again if this kept up, even if it never went farther than a rumor.  Maybe he would go back to his real name, maybe he would have Noelle teach him more about Shakespeare and give up on singing for a little while.

The thought made his heart ache.

He tried to push the thoughts of his own problems to the back of his mind.  Noelle’s audition was early today and he was going to be there to see it, to cheer her on.  And if he was being entirely honest with himself he was more than a little curious to see how she looks when she was a man.  

The auditions have already started when he slips into the room with the small stage where most of their open rehearsals took place.  He can see a row of familiar directors sitting in the center seating.  He doesn’t look for Noelle, instead he looks for the suit he’d seen slung over her shoulder when she’d made her escape last night.

Noelle is standing at the far side of the room, with the younger performer he’d seen him fencing with the week before.  He’s demonstrating again to another boy who must be the first boy’s scene partner.  Zen tries to sneak up to them, to take Noelle in properly before he sees him.  Noelle had even borrowed the shirt he’d hung with that suit.  Black on black with a long cassock coat, he wore the collar of the shirt opened as low as he could without showing his binder and he was almost positive the untied red bowtie was Seven’s.

Noelle crinkles his nose when he sees Zen and smiles.  When he turns Zen can see that he’s straightened and tucked his hair so that it appears shorter than it actually is, he’s even seems to have facial hair.

“What,” Noelle says with the same gravel in his voice he’d used while speaking to Echo Girl, “you decide you might want this role too?”

God, even dressed like this, even with that ridiculous bulge in his borrowed trousers, he was restraining himself from kissing him.  

“Listen,” Noelle was saying to one of the boys, “the key is really to just not let him hit you unless it’s in the script.” He brings the blade of the foil down on his thigh with a crack. “These are props, not sharp at all, he’s gotta really want to fuck you up to more than bruise you.”

“I’d really rather he not bruise me though,” the boy complained as Noelle handed him the foil.

“Then you’re in the wrong fucking industry,” Noelle snickered.

“Do you want to run your lines?” He asks quietly as Noelle leads him to a seat near the directors.

“Do you wanna talk about the social media shit storm you’re standing at the center of?” He laughs.

“Later,” he shrugs reaching between them to squeeze his hand quickly before anyone could see. “Are you sure you don’t want to practice a little more?”

He shakes his head.  “I ran lines all night,” he admits.  “Seven’s house is full of weird smells and uncomfortable personal revelations.”

He can feel his hackles rise and realizes it must be obvious when Noelle squeezes his hand.

“Not like that, Hyun.  He just, you know, mirror mirror on the wall?  All your secrets at his fingertips.”

“Oh.”

“Kira,” the call from the stage comes and Noelle shoots him a wink before he slips out of the seat and moves swiftly down the aisle towards the stage.

“Kira, No,” he says, the gravel gone, for a moment, he inclines his head at the directors and takes a breath.

Zen watches his body language change, his posture shift. Noelle’s usual properly affected posture and loose moments replaced by something feline and aggressive.  He rolls his shoulders, lets out an irritated breath, shifting his head as he watches an invisible person exit the stage before shifting his glare back to the audience, and slumping, he sighs, raises a hand to his mouth and drops it before he speaks.

The gravel is back and he listens for the rhythm Noelle had taught him.  He’s still not quite sure what Hamlet was talking about but he watches the conflict of emotions No performs, the way he uses his entire body even when he’s standing in one place, his wrist flicks his foot turns his head cocks to one side and a shoulder twitches.

He loves them, realizes suddenly.  Maybe it had only been a week, and maybe that made him crazy but watching Noelle on stage every inch a man in this moment and nothing is conflicted in him.  If things here were different he would catch No exiting the stage and reward this performance with a kiss.  Anything else he still had to tell him, anything he’s suffered or done nothing could quell this feeling.

There’s silence when he finishes, a murmur from the directors seated below him, and then his posture changes, and he’s Noelle again.  Noelle takes a small bow and offers a little salute in Zen’s direction as a spattering of applause rises around him and Zen feels compelled to stand as he joins them.  Noelle shakes his head at him, already pulling the pins out of her hair.

“Your agent is backstage,” she whispers to him pulling elastic out of her pocket.  “He sounds pissed are you avoiding him?”

Zen sighs. “You want to get out of here?”

“Just a second, hunch down so he doesn’t see you,” she laughs shoving him down into his seat.

He does what she tells him and watches her approach the directors as the next performer is called to the stage.  She shakes their hands and thanks them for the opportunity.  He watches her nod respectfully at them and smile before walking back towards him.

“God you certainly make an impression,” he grunts pulling himself up as she pulls him towards the door by his sleeve.

“We can’t all be a giant Adonis with the voice of an Angel, Jagi,” she laughs breathlessly and he blushes.  “Do you keep a locker here?” She asks and he shakes his head.  She slips out of his suit jacket and checks one of the combination locks, smiling over her shoulder at him “MJ never changes her code.”

She hangs his jacket on one of the hooks and fishes a bright pink hanger out with one hand, unbuttoning her borrowed shirt with the other.  She hangs Zen’s things in MJs locker and closes the door, shoving Seven’s bow tie in her gym bag and pulling her teal hoodie over the tanktop she was wearing.

He watches her amazed at the casualness of her transformation, she was back to her androgynous self, even with the facial hair, she was a chameleon and he loved it.

“Do you want to get something to eat,” she pauses frowning at the door, “full disclosure Seven will probably show up like a mama-bear, I’m supposed to call him if I finish early and he’s got someone watching me.”

“Jesus,” Zen breathes.

“Actually,” she smiles and pulls her phone out, she fires off a series of texts in short succession before they head to a little café nearby and order sandwiches to go.  Zen waits for them while she excuses herself to the bathroom to wash her face.  As they leave Noelle bumps into someone and drops her bag.

Zen has to shake his head when he watches the person bed over to grab their bag, Noelle following suit and picking up the other person’s bag and pulling up her hood.

“What was that?” he whispers while they wait at a bus stop.

Noelle smirks at him. “You asked about making up to the kids yesterday, Seven said we could have two hours for the children, and Nina has some grand punishment for me.”

“What?”

“Did you want to see me skate?”

She points him to the bench when they get there and he’s immediately greeted with the one she called Nina, full of questions and playful accusations while Noelle changes in the locker room.  She shoots her tiny friend a look, slips her guards off and tosses them to him.

“Everything she says is a lie,” Noelle says very seriously, stepping onto the ice.  Across from them a row of children lean against the boards as Nina fiddles with her phone and the music starts.  Noelle shoots her a look.

“This is a punishment, Stitches.” Nina calls out to her.

Noelle starts and Zen has no idea what he’s watching.  He hadn’t ever sat down to watch figure skating before.

“Camel spin!” The tiny woman in front of him hollers making him jump and Noelle drops into a spinning pose.

“Switch!” she shouts and he can’t tell what’s happening but she’s off again.

“Spread eagle, sit spin, arabesque!” the woman calls out and Noelle glides past feet pointed wide before dropping to the obviously named sit spin, and then up into what he recognizes as a ballet position.

“Quad flip triple salchow combo!” the woman calls out shooting a grin back to Zen.

“You’re trying to kill me,” Noelle complains.

“You owe these kids!”

A few of the kids watching shout in agreement and he sees Noelle pick up speed, he can’t count the rotations or tell one jump from the other but she gets the first off without a hitch as far as he can see and the kids are cheering as she gets air for the second, a grunt and a hiss as she stumbles her landing and touches down.

“Weak!” Nina calls and Noelle flips her off behind her back.  “Come on kids, give Coach Lee something really hard!”

“Do a back flip!” One girl calls out and Noelle glances back at Nina with a smirk.

“Do not do a back flip!” Nina calls.

Zen listens to the kids call out words he’s never heard, jumps and spins and fancy things with her feet and Noelle tries to do them all as they come, stumbling over more than she’d probably like.  He can see her face red, the hair at her temple curling up.  Her dark pants are white with snow from the ice where she’s fallen.  

Nina skates out to meet her and one of the boys yells something out.  Noelle shakes her head but he watches as she grabs Nina lifting her above over her head.  The smaller woman braces herself on Noelle’s shoulder with one hand and Noelle spins as the kids cheer, Nina lets herself fall into Noelle’s arms and Noelle lowers her to the Ice.  

“Coach Lee has 20 minutes to watch you from the boards, if you want her to come back for good in two weeks, you better impress her,” Nina shouts at them as Noelle skates back towards him breathing heavy and smiling from ear to ear.

“Come on Mei!” Noelle shouts across the rink, “Eff it up!”  She turns back just in time to grab his face when she hits the boards and drop a quick kiss on his lips.

“We have locker rooms for a reason,” a teenage boy says stepping past them onto the ice.

“That hella gross Taemin,” she frowns.

“Wow,” Zen sighs, “that was—”

“Weak as hell,” she groans stepping off the ice.

“I was going to say really impressive,” he smiles as she brushes the snow off her blades and grabs a rag from the bench behind him.

“Hmm,” she smiles taking her guards from him. “You should have seen me before when I was in shape,” she stares past him wistfully.   “Can you skate?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “I’ve never tried.”

“Well if it all goes tits up with Echo Girl maybe we could start competing in pairs.”

“Huh,” he pulls his coat a little tighter around himself.

“Oh sorry, I guess we were kind of trying to forget about that huh?”  She grabs him by the hand and leans into him snapping one of her guards in place.

“Not forget exactly, just,” he sighs, “what can I even do about it?”

“I suppose you can’t exactly counter tweet with actually my partner was borrowing clothes when she showed up. Not to mention she obviously was under the impression I’m a dude.”

“Oh my god,” he groans covering his face.

Noelle shrugs. “That could work in your favor maybe.”  She turns to watch the kids as they pair off, one little girl with bright green eyes looks around for a moment before Nina frowns. “Oh, we’re short a boy today huh?”

Noelle sighs and stops what she’s doing, she pulls off the guard she’d just put on and sticks them back in Zen’s pocket.  “I’ve got you Mei,” she calls stepping back onto the ice and stretching dramatically, “you’re going to have to do all the lifts though ok, Kiddo?”

Zen chuckles as the no-more-than-eight year old nods seriously.

Noelle looks back over her shoulder and smiles, “that’s my little sister,” she laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late.
> 
> If you don't follow me on either twitter or tumblr, quick personal update, I'm rolling all my updates back a bit, my usual bi weeklies are going to run once a week on rotating weeks. PI will update on Monday, then the next week EHC will update on Tuesday, etc.
> 
> My new Yoosung/MC gamer AU is going to run weekly [wed] while I finish my Rare Pair fics as a filler.
> 
> SAD is a fun time y'all but I should be back to posting way too much by the end of Feb.
> 
> In the meantime feel free to follow me on twitter @BotanyVampire or tumblr @botany-enthused-vampire


	28. Day 8: 2

There is no way they won’t find him.  Not when he’d taken his own car.  In hindsight that had been stupid though it had seemed logical at the time.  Staring blankly into the garage with his stolen glasses for something that he thought he could drive, something automatic preferably and there it was, his BMW.  A car he knew like the back of his hand, a car he’d had since high school.  

But now there was no way they wouldn’t find him.  Not with his car, right there.  He’d had the sense to park it a few blocks away but he’d spent all his cash on the room he’d rented, he doubted he could use his own cards and he doubted he’d be able to get Luciel to transfer funds to one of his aliases anymore.

There were too many things he hadn’t considered in his hurry to leave.  He hadn’t enough cash, both his phones were tapped by Luciel and by Saeran, Luciel was not talking to him, and he couldn’t be sure that Jumin hadn’t been told about what he’d done to Noelle, even if he did call him now he may not help.

He may have driven them all away.

He had been a fool.  He’d known Mint Eye was spiraling into something he couldn’t contain, that Rika was getting out of control, but he’d let it go too far to stop it.  He was starting to understand now that it had always been out of his grasp.  She’d been dead, he’d been so certain, how could he not be after everything she said, after all the threats.  They’d even found a hand with her rings, he shuddered to think who’s hand it really was, he’d been so certain then that it had belonged to her.

He hadn’t fallen for her Savior act, but he’d fallen for everything else and lately everyday seemed to bring some new disciple to the castle, people who had been part of the fold for years that he’d never seen, people acting of their own free will without the initiation drugs, a few with loved ones living in there, acting on their behalf.

How many more people were out there under her thumb?

How long had he been one of them?

The party was in three days, how many of Noelle’s guests were Rika’s powerful plants?  Was the RFA in danger?  Worst of all how could he explain this to any of them?  

Jumin would be prepared to help him until he found out about Noelle and then he would lose the last person in his life he could turn to.  He suspected Noelle had told Zen everything; Yoosung already blamed him for Rika, and whatever respect Jaehee had had for him was on Jumin’s behest.

He had meant to die sooner, to let the cancer kill him quickly; his lawyer had a sealed box full with evidence and letters of apology to deliver to Jumin the moment he died.  Perhaps he should simply end it here, drive his car off the edge of one of the winding mountain side roads, and leave it to Jumin to clean up his mess, to pick up the pieces.

Like he’d almost done with Noelle.

_ “You talk sense into him, Jihyun,” Jumin’s father had growled throwing up his hands. _

_ “This is ridiculous,” Jumin frowned, his voice composed, “she is allowed visitors, at the very least someone should be there so that she knows she is not alone with that man.” _

_ “That man is her father, and he is exactly the reason you cannot do this Jumin.” His father shouted slamming the door behind him. _

_ “Jumin,” V started but Jumin shook his head. _

_ “Only a complete fool would believe that gossip,” Jumin said smoothly, looking V in the eyes.  “What happened to your face?” _

_ Rika had slapped him when he told her he needed to talk with Jumin alone.  She’d accused him of lying, and cheating, and a number of other ridiculous things, and then she had slapped him three times in quick succession before locking herself in their room.  A dark bruise from her ring blossomed just above his cheekbone. “It’s nothing,” he lied, “I fell on my face trying something for a photo yesterday.” _

_ Jumin had shrugged. “You’re too careless.” _

_ V laughed.  “You’re one to talk.  You’ve barely established yourself at C&R do you really want all those rumors to come back around?  Do you think Nel needs that picture circulating right now, the newspapers with a photo of her in rehab and the tabloids next to them with the two of you—” _

_ “The two of you,” Jumin corrected him. _

_ “That’s not what it looks like Jumin,” V sighs, “the truth is not what they’ve ever cared about it.  You’re father is right you can’t go there right now it will only make things worse.” _

_ “Worse for who, V?  I don’t care if I make things difficult for him or Mr. Lee, this is about Noodle, it’s not abou—” _

_ “Do you care if you make things worse for her?” _

_ Jumin stops what he’s doing, his eyes burn. “Of course I do.” _

_ “Jumin you can’t go right now, at the very least you should wait until the papers are bored of it, her father’s company is going bankrupt, she’s tried to kill herself and now there are rumors that Mr. Lee is sick.  It’s not a good time.” _

_ Jumin growls and sits heavy in his office chair.  His face is still impassive, his tone has barely fluctuated even when his father was shouting, but the tears brimming in his eyes are obvious.  “Then you should go.” _

_ “Jumin, I can’t just go to Canada right now, Rika—” _

_ “Rika can stay in my guest room if you’re worried she’ll be lonely.”  He’d nodded as if anything had been that simple. _

_ “Jumin,” he said firmly.  “I know you mean well, but I can’t.  I can’t leave Rika to visit my ex-girlfriend, she’s already suspicious about all the calls I’ve been getting from you and my mother.” _

_ “I’m sure if you explained the situation to her.” _

_ “Jumin I can’t.” _

_ “Then I will explain to her—” _

_ “It’s not something you can explain, Jumin.” _

_ Jumin’s jaw sets and the room was quiet for what felt like hours.  “I hate this,” Jumin had whispered. _

_ “I know,” V agreed. _

_ “I would have helped her if I knew,” he said softly. _

_ “Jumin she didn’t want your help or she would have asked.” _

_ “You don’t know that.”  Jumin’s voice was hoarse as his composure started to break. _

_ Then V had held him while he cried. _

The last time he’d seen Jumin cry had been Rika’s funeral but it had been nothing like that evening when he’d talked him out of going overseas.  Jumin abhorred not being in control and it had been difficult for him to understand that whatever had forced Noelle to do this to herself was likely far beyond their reach.  

His friend had cried, great wracking sobs into his chest in his office in the C&R building and V had held him while his shoulders heaved and his tears soaked his shirt and then he’d gone home and coaxed Rika out of their room and tried to explain about Noelle and Jumin and everything that was happening, still keeping his secrets.  

He’d thought Rika so fragile, worried that she undervalued herself, but he was also not ready for her to know how quickly he’d given up on Noelle when the time had come to fight.  None of it had been real.

He didn’t remember falling asleep.  The sun was filtering through the curtains of the tiny roadside motel and both his phones flashed with missed calls and messages.  But the dream stuck with him, the memory.  

He supposed, looking out the window at the bright light of the day, he could always attempt to hitchhike into the city.  It had been years since he’d done anything like that.  But there was GPS anti-theft in his car and he was certain Saeran would track his credit cards.  His phones were likely traceable also, he decides leaving them on the desk, the batteries were nearing empty anyway and he’d forgotten his charger.

One of them chimes and he sees Jumin’s photo flash up on the screen.  He leaves it at first, taking a few steps towards the door.  He’s not supposed to answer any calls from Jumin, she’d said so.

Then he stops.  And turns and gathers the phone up holding the flashing green answer icon.

“Oh,” Jumin says, startled.  “I hadn’t expected you to answer, are you back then?”

“I uh—” V stumbles, he can’t ask Jumin for anything, can’t tell him where he is, he doesn’t know who might be listening.  “I’m on my way, I didn’t expect to have signal just yet.”

“Well I’m glad you do, I need to talk to you.”

“How is Noelle?” He asks suddenly, worried about the tone of Jumin’s voice.

“Hmm, yes that is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” Jumin says somberly.

“She’s ok?”

“Yes, of course, it’s not as if it was her first hangover.  She spent the day with Zen doing god knows what, not what I’d asked her to do of course—”

“Of course,” he chuckles relieved.  “But she’s well, what is the problem.”

“It’s Luciel, you need to reign him in, Noelle was supposed to come back to the penthouse after but do you know what he’s done with her?”

“I uh, I don’t know?”

“He says she’s back at Rika’s apartment but no one has seen her go in, and I am certain that she’s—”

V hangs up the phone.  Wherever she is they won’t find out from him.  He’s sure Luciel can handle it, he trusts him to keep Noelle safe.  More than he had initially but given the last conversation they’d had? He puts the phone back next to the other one and leaves the room, it will be a long day if he intends to hitch back to the city and he can’t see any other option.

*

“Funny,” Luciel says watching the tall man leaning on the boards jump.

“Oh, hey Seven,” Zen shrugs.

“Hmm, yes hello conspirator, where are they?  Where is your partner in crime?”

“Noelle?” Luciel sounds irritated and Zen isn’t certain he’s ever heard him anything but happy-go-lucky.

“No Elly, Jumin said you finally admitted the superiority of our feline overlords and kidnapped her,” he leans back on his heels chuckling.

Zen turns back to the ice and points, sniffling slightly.  Noelle is on the far side, her sister on her back and a child hanging from each arm as she skates circles around a teenage boy leading the kids in some unintelligible chanting.

“Hey!” Seven shouts leaning over the boards. “Hey you, Hey Giant!”

The kids let go and Noelle spins around searching for the source of the voice.  They slip their sister off their back and nods to Nina before turning around and skating towards them.  A sheepish grin on their face. “Am I late?” They asks as if they don’t know they’re almost a half hour later than they’d begged him to let them stay.

Or at least he liked to imagine they were begging, it was difficult to judge in a text message.  “Is that out of your system?  All this floofy spinning nonsense?  You want to be cold with blades tied to your feet I can take you Siberia.”

Noelle rolls their eyes and pitches into the air.

“Yeah yeah, nice triple axel, get off the ice we have to go.”  Irritation creeping back into his voice.

“Come on Seven,” they laugh, “you’re not even a little impressed, I fell and Zen was impressed.”

“I’m not sleeping with you,” Seven shrugs with a smirk and they both blush.

“Just give me two minutes I need to get my things.”

Luciel holds out their bag and they snatch it out of his hand.

“Do you need a ride back to your place?” He asks looking at Zen.

“I’m ok,” Zen shrugs, “I’ll take the train.”

Seven nods while Noelle changes back into their boots and dries their blades.

“This Echo Girl thing, you need me to—”

“My agent wants to give it a few days see how it plays out before I do anything.”

“Yeah ok, but you know—”

“I can handle it,” Zen shrugs.

“Come on Six, Mrs. Vanderwood is waiting with your punishment,” Seven claps his hands as Noelle stands from the bench.

“Sweet, I bet it’s a nice cup of tea,” Noelle laughs.

Noelle’s phone chimes with a text from Zen before they’ve even pulled away from the rink.

“Gross are you one of those couples?” Seven chuckles.

“He’s asking where you’re taking me, I told him back to Rika’s apartment, that’s what we’re telling people right?”

He nods.  “You know you can’t do that right, Six?  The security cameras inside that place are ancient; most of them are not on a network you were an hour late and you weren’t answering your phone.”

“Sorry,” they hang their head, “I had gloves on and the kids were so happy, I didn’t—it’s a pain in the ass you know, I didn’t realize how long past it was.”

“I know I keep saying everything’s peaches,” he sighs, “but it’s not.”

“Yeah I figured,” Noelle snorts.

“I don’t know what V has to do with any of this, I don’t know if he was trying to hurt you or not but someone is.”

“Why?” Noelle kicks their feet up on the dash of Seven’s car and he groans in pain.  “They’re clean fuck off, why is someone doing this to me?  What is it about me?”

“That’s where I get lost,” he admits.  “If someone were trying to get to Jumin this is convoluted to say the least, you were easier to get to in your own apartment, especially without me involved.”

“Honestly even if this was about Jumin I feel like there’s better bait.”

“If you mean Elly, that’s harder than it looks, believe me.”

“Have you seriously tried to kidnap Libby?”

“Oh oh!  Do you get away with that?  He hit me last time I called her Elly in front of him, do you get to give my lady cute nicknames? This is harassment,” he shouts.

“Seven, focus.”

“Yes, uh, sorry.” He coughs.  “It’s just, you weren’t close enough to Zen for this to be about him.  What does Yoosung even have to offer that someone might want to bait him with someone five years older than him.  Jaehee would lead back to Jumin,” he sighs exasperated.

“What about you?”

“I suppose sending you to the apartment did serve as a distraction but even then, the hassle of hacking into the app, none of it seems worth it unless it’s not about you, or one of us as much as it’s about all of us.”

“And I was just convenient?”

“No,” he admits, “you were definitely a calculated choice as far as bait goes.  I couldn’t have done better myself.”

“So you have a theory?”

“Not exactly, I have part of a theory.  I have an infant theory, a theory that still shits it’s pants.”

“Seven,” they warn.

“Well whoever is doing this doesn’t see Yoosung as threat, you have zero connection to him.  You’re connection to Zen and Jaehee could be simple coincidence, or something to keep you invested, they definitely wanted me distracted, and Jumin invested, but V,” he trails off.

“He didn’t know it was me until you told him.”

Seven nods and swallows.  “He’s involved, but whoever is doing this, whatever Mint Eye is, they wanted him to be surprised.” He inhales hating that he couldn’t just figure this out, hating that it was so close yet just out of his reach. “Maybe they were testing him,” he mumbles to himself.

“Have you talked to him since the other night.” Noelle asks pulling their hoodie around themself.

“He just,” Seven nods, “apologized a lot.  Said he was going to fix it.”


	29. Day 8: 3

Jumin growls and throws his phone across the room when the line goes dead. “This is ridiculous.”

It crashes into the closed door followed shortly by Ms. Kang frowning. “Mr. Han is something wrong?  Would like me to get you something.”

“I would like for you to finish the slides I asked for two days ago, what is taking so long?”

“I am,” she pauses and inhales, “I am almost prepared they will be ready when you need them, I have been preparing for the coffee presentation tomorrow.”

“I thought I said that, that was not important?” He says waving her off when she crouches down to pick up his phone.

She nods.  “Of course, I simply do not want it to reflect poorly on you, so some care should be put into it.”

Jumin groans as she sets the shattered phone down in front of him, her face stern and unreadable. “Thank you Assistant Kang.” He forces himself to say.

“I will have a replacement sent to the penthouse by this evening,” she nods at him, “charged to your personal account.”

Jumin nods back, watching her leave wondering what she must think of an outburst like that, but then he remembers the slides, and the fact that she’s spent more than a little time on Zen’s fansite since she arrived this morning.  He was vaguely aware that some scandal had been brewing there, but he’d only looked deep enough to ensure it had nothing to do with Noelle.

His people had watched her car leave the rehearsal space late afternoon the previous day, Luciel had insisted she was going back to Rika’s apartment, but when his people had sent him pictures of the person getting into her car he was absolutely certain that it was not her.  The hips were too narrow and there was something not right about the way their hair sat on their head.

Luciel was not taking his calls, purposely he had to assume, and then V had hung up on him.  Jumin had not felt like this in years, not since he was a teenager. He didn’t like it.

*

Zen watches the notifications roll past on his locked phone screen.  He can’t bring himself to unlock it for anything less than a phone call from his agent or a text from Noelle but he can’t tear his eyes away, emails from his fans ranging from  _ how could you _ to  _ I believe in you _ , tweets from EchoGirl’s fans calling him every horrible thing in the book and demanding he be blacklisted; every once in a while some poor person in the middle wondering why he hadn’t told his side of the story.

And Noelle’s tweets from the night before mostly ignored.

Until this moment.

Someone, he suspected Seven, had actually retweeted them tagging him in the process.  Why would @TheActorZen call @Echogirl over for something so vulgar when another actor was already in his home? The first tweet read. I bet he just wanted to run lines, someone else had responded, and Zen was pretty sure this account was also Seven.  Zen is so dedicated, the next retweet read, and he knew that one was Seven, he recognized the user photo.

He sighs, he can’t do this anymore, he turns the notifications off and tosses his phone down on the couch next to him.  He’d personally given away the role he’d been working on when he got the call about this show and he couldn’t just take that back.  Not to mention what if this did manage to spiral further than it already has and someone important took the call to blacklist him seriously.

Would it all be for nothing?  Running away from home, all those shitty jobs, was it all so he could crash and burn right here?  Maybe V should have let him be when he crashed his motorcycle, maybe it would have been better. 

He opens the RFA app and thumbs through his texts with Noelle, they’d gotten less and less personal over the course of the last hour, until finally the last three hadn’t even been complete words.  What if yesterday had been an act. What if they were laughing at him now with Jumin?

No, there had been something genuine about the way they’d come out to him, he could tell they didn’t do that very often, they’d been sincere, he had to get out of his own head.

Where my parents right? He types the words out, watches the cursor blink and then back spaces.  _ I miss you _ . He hits send.

*

“Heads up Six!”

There’s a series of pops, Noelle screams, and Seven cackles.  

“I don’t remember ever doing that to you,” Vanderwood groans, pushing open the door to the bunker with a pizza in one hand.  

“You shot at me,” Seven snorts snatching the box from Vanderwood.

“With blanks,” Vanderwood shrugs.

“Can I shoot at you?” Noelle asks, grabbing a slice from the box before Seven can put it down.

“Absolutely not,” Seven says shaking his head and almost dropping the box.

“I have a vest in my trunk,” Vanderwood says with a smirk, “it would be a valid trial by fire.”

“For who?” Seven asks, his voice cracking slightly.

Noelle smiles eagerly at Vanderwood.

“So I haven’t been entirely honest,” Seven starts and Vanderwood makes themself scarce.  

“I thought that was your whole thing,” Noelle laughs through a mouthful, “you know the secret agent, very dangerous, whatever thing.”

He makes a dismissive gesture with his slice of pizza. “No, I mean yeah but that’s not what I’m talking about.  Noelle I need to be serious with you for a minute ok?”

“Okay?” Noelle shrugs.  “I mean I’m here, I know this is heavy, did you figure something else out?”

“No, not yet,” he sighs and pushes his glasses back up his nose.  “I need to confess something to you.”

“Oh man,” they groans, “that tone?  You’re going to say something that will piss me off aren’t you.”

“Heh, yeah I guess,” he shrugs. “Whoever sent you to that apartment, they want  _ you _ dead.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?  I don’t think V knew that, I don’t think he expected whatever he gave you to have the effect it did, which suggests he’d used it before or at least saw it in action,” he inhales and moves to push his glasses back up despite the fact they’ve not moved, “but I think that was the goal there, because when you didn’t die then that’s when,” he pauses and runs his hands through his hair, “that’s when they started hacking the special security.”

“Seven you can’t look all sad at me and tell me you’re going to be honest and then say special security like I know what that means.”

“It’s a  _ bomb _ ,” he doesn’t yell the words but his tone is sharp.

Noelle’s shoulders square and their eyes search his face and he winces when they speak. “There’s a bomb in that apartment?”

He nods slowly, “I put it there myself.”

“Does Jihyun know?”

“Rika asked me to do it, he made sure I had what I needed,” he swallows.

“Does anyone else know?”

Seven shakes his head. “You mean Jumin?  No, just Rika, V and myself. She insisted it was for the best, it would only go off if someone broke in.  You were entirely safe until the hacker attacked my system, and even then, I didn’t, I don’t, I’m really good, no one should have been able to get through my security.”

“But someone did?” He watches them chew on the inside of their cheek while they process what he’s just said.  “That apartment is on the 14th floor what happens when that bomb goes off?”

“It’s a massive bomb Six.”

“Other people live in that building,” their voice raises, pitched up and slightly strained, “what happens to them?”

He can’t meet their eyes.  Noelle stands and turns and he raises his head to watch, they stretch their arms over their head, raise up on their toes and sigh heavily, he can hear their neck crack before they turn around. “So what happens now?”

“That’s heh, that’s, that’s” he amps up just glad to see them move past the worst of it, apparently still trusting him despite all the lies already, “that’s exactly why you’re here, that’s the plan.”

“You skipped a step,” they point out sitting back down and reaching for another piece of pizza.

“Oh, did I?” He chuckles.  “Well that’s why I sent you to Zen’s, not for you to get your kissy kissy on and pick a fight with a pop star.”

“So you fixed that bomb then?”

“Well don’t simplify it, that’s not fun.  I rewrote the program while Mrs. Vanderwood kept the hacker distracted; now they have a dummy firewall to bust through and feel a sense of accomplishment, Mrs. Vanderwood has led their bloodhounds back to the apartment and set the security cameras to loop a series of video from the last few days so it looks like you’re still there, living your life.”

“When really I’m here eating Pizza and dodging fire crackers.”

“Doing important secret agent training,” he cheers.

“That’s why you’re throwing firecrackers at me and calling me Six?”

“That’s just the start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See my twitter @botanyvampire for update information. 
> 
> I'm not abandoning anything beyond Catalyst AU and my crack AUs at this point but updates will be much more sparse once I work through my very small buffer. I'm focusing more on original work.


	30. Day 8: end

Saeran wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.  He deserved this, he deserved her scorn and her wrath. He deserved every word she spit at him, the bite of her rings into his cheek, the sting of her heel grinding into his foot, he had earned it all, and he would earn more still.

“There was nothing I could do about the liar,” he insists when she stops for a breath, “not if I was going to break through Luciel’s security and re-write the system, not if you—”

His ears ring and he can feel at least one of his teeth crack, the small cut at the corner of his mouth splitting wider with the force.  He’s not even sure what she’d hit him with, a book of some kind probably. His mind starts to wander and he knows he’s long past missing his last communion.  

“Today has been very disappointing.” She sighs dropping into the plush high-backed chair she called her throne.  She pats her lap and waits.

He tries not to sigh, not to seem ungrateful.  She was his savior and when he was still a child, still small and learning to please her that gesture had meant the world. Now, standing here in her room with his people on either side of the door there was something demeaning about crawling into her lap and letting her pat his head.

Demeaning to both of them.

He did as she bid and she cradled his head to her chest the way she would do after she’d disciplined him when he first came to the castle. She blots at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth with her sleeve and hums absently holding him tightly to her.

“He’s betrayed both of us,” she whispers into his hair, “he’s left us here alone to run to them after everything we’ve done, after we’ve gotten so close, he’s abandoned us.”

She buries her face in his hair and he can feel her tears soak through to his scalp. She always cried when she had to punish someone, and he thought of those tears as a baptism of sorts, something special, something for him.  He didn’t notice when his arms slipped around her waist until he’s tightening his hold on her, pressing his face further into her chest while she softly cries into his hair and strokes his back.

He might have fallen asleep.  He doesn’t know when or for how long, he’s so exhausted and he can’t remember the last time he’s eaten anything but she’s pulling him up by his hair and he follows, unquestioning, the change in her mood.

“You need to get her,” she shrieks, and he knows now he had fallen asleep, he’s missed something, made her angry again.  “You need to go there and bring her home.”

He nods, not quite processing what she’s saying but he knows better than to ask what she means, he knows the information is there, and he’ll process it when she’s finished.

“Bring her here, he’ll follow her, they’ll all follow her,” she lets go of his hair but her finger is hooked in his choker pulling him behind her as she rambles, her voice rising and falling with the ebb and flow of her mood.  “—kill her if he doesn’t. Did you see him when he came back, and he used that name, yes bring them all here they can watch her be the first and then,” she stops suddenly and lets him go. Her eyes are shining and she’s smiling and he can’t help but smile back.

“Then,” he starts for her.

“Your brother,” her smile widens and she bounces on her toes, “and V, we’ll have them both, and you’ll be rewarded.”

*

“Are you satisfied?” Noelle flicks the safety on the .22 Vanderwood had handed her and sets the gun down on the bench in front of her, watching while they gather the target she’d been firing at.

“I might even be impressed,” Vanderwood snorts.

“Yeah well after I fucked up my own death I found that shooting a gun was pretty cathartic.”

“Don’t get cocky Kid,” Vanderwood scolds.  “You’re better than I expected but 07 is still a better shot than you, so don’t go thinking you’re going to get to carry one of these.”

“Pop a picture of my Dad up there, my aim will get exponentially better,” she shrugs and Seven laughs.  “besides I’d rather have something a little heavier,” she eyes the .45 in Vanderwood’s shoulder holster.

“Not a chance, not even a little chance,” Vanderwood shakes their head.  “07 make sure the Kid knows the basics while I put this away.”

Noelle watches Vanderwood pop the magazine out of the .22 she’d been firing and slap a trigger lock on it before Seven pulls her along behind him. “What are the basics?”

“It’s kicky punchy time,” he smiles over his shoulder at her.

Her pocket buzzes and she watches as he reaches into his jeans too. “Chatroom,” they both laugh.

She navigates the short conversation while he watches, aware of the eyes on her while she tries to mediate whatever has Jumin so flustered.  “Mr. big time CEO is kind of attached to that pen huh?” he chuckles.

Noelle clucks her tongue. “I don’t know, I think,” she lets the thought trail off, “can I call him and just—”

“Nope,” his face is serious, “no it’s safer if it’s just you and me and Van.  If we’re going to pull this off the RFA can’t have any idea that you’re not in complete and total danger.”

“You know this hacker could just kill me,” she shrugs and he freezes.

“No, I don’t think they will.”

“But they could, you said it yourself, you think I was supposed to be dead already.”

“If it was still that simple,” he sighs grabbing her wrist again and dragging her the rest of the way across his garage, “they would have just sent someone to kill you before you left, they’ve been watching the whole time, even from here I couldn’t do anything, if he failed and you had to die they could have just killed you, they had plenty of chances and they didn’t so push that thought way way down.”

There’s a square of soft foam puzzle pieces covering the floor and Seven drops her wrist to dig through a big black duffle bag, making a triumphant noise when he comes up with a zip tie.

“First thing’s first Six, I’m going to teach you how to get out of one of these. “

*

V had barely adjusted to his stumbling gait on the highway’s shoulder when a transport truck had stopped and offered him a ride.  He guessed an hour or two but he hadn’t thought to look at the time before he’d hurried out of his motel room. The woman driving the truck scolds him for stumbling along the highway, there’s an almost matronly quality to her words and he has to stop himself from laughing through the lecture.

When she finally lets up she agrees to take him to a small mall somewhere between his apartment and Jumin’s Penthouse.  He thanks her and reaches for his wallet thinking to offer her money for gas before he remembers he has no cash, nothing to pay her with or thank her.  She holds out a hand and stops him.

Sometime during the half a day drive he falls asleep, his head bouncing against the window, waking up when the truck brakes harshly in the rush hour traffic.  He doesn’t notice the money in the pocket of his sweater until long after he’s walked away from the kind truck driving woman. Wandering through the Mall trying to decide where to go next he reaches into his pocket habitually for the phone that isn’t there and comes out with a handful of bills.

That’s when he notices Hyun’s face on the TV in the little food court. The gossip portion of an entertainment program flashed one of his screenshots next to a woman, a popstar he gathered, even with the glasses on and his right eye closed he could barely make out the words on the screen and there was no sound, an image of Jumin flashes up to and he groans.

Everything was going to hell.

He knows somewhere at the end of this mall is an electronics store and he hopes he can see well enough to read a computer screen.  Part way through the mall he has to stop, seized by a terrible coughing fit. He holds onto a bench to keep from collapsing, trying to ignore the people who skirt wide around him.   His inner monologue berates him for causing a scene when he should be trying to lay low.

It’s hard to tell, with his eyes the way they were, how far these rumors had spread, only a few sites were accessible from the display computers and then only one or two had large enough text that he could read them.

He’s standing at the single lonely payphone waiting for Jumin to pick up before he’s even realized he’s made a decision.

*

Noelle is still panting when she comes back to the makeshift training ring in Seven’s garage.  Her face is still red and she looks a little more uncomfortable, but Vanderwood had insisted she stop binding for the evening so she wouldn’t hurt herself.  She’d argued for a minute but then Vanderwood had reached out to take her and hand and dropped her on her ass.

“Go change Kid, you make yourself sick then this is all a waste of my time.”

So Noelle had changed and was doing her best not to look like a petulant teenager when she came back and stood in front of them. “Ok now what.”

Vanderwood takes the pads from Seven and holds them up. “Go again,” they say.

Noelle cycles through everything she knows, kicks and punches and combinations, everything Seven had just taught her and things she’d picked up along the way, a kickboxing class here, a body combat class there, the 3 week self defense class she’d taken with Nina that time.

But Vanderwood is clucking their tongue at her and shedding the pads. “As nice as it would be if you have to get yourself out of trouble I doubt these Mint Eye assholes are going to stand around waiting for you to wallop them.”

“Yeah no shit,” Noelle snorts.  She watches Vanderwood pull their hair back and dig in the duffle bag from earlier.  They pull a hair tie around their long hair and toss a pair of padded gloves and a bite guard to Noelle.

She frowns, it’s obviously been used before but she’s been listening to Vanderwood go from praise to criticism all day and she’s determined to not fuck up again so she shoves it in her mouth and pulls the gloves on.

“Let’s get ready to rumble!” Seven shouts.

Noelle is exhausted, it’s been hours since Seven confessed about the bomb, hours since they’d explained the plan to her and started her training.  She was an excellent student, she picked up Seven’s basic elements of hacking a security keypad, the few things she might need to know in a pinch when they get her into the Mint Eye HQ.  Then Vanderwood had taken her to the little range on one side of the garage for another series of lessons. Following that this, first Seven teaching her everything she needed to know about breaking her restraints and then self defense.

Not to mention having to keep up with the RFA chats and texts, and maintain the illusion that she was back in the apartment.  She’d been skipping Zen’s calls, he seemed to pick up on her mood better than anyone else, she hoped he understood.

Vanderwood landed a number of glancing blows, and as hard as she tried she could barely lift her arms she was so tired.  Seven hoots and hollers and eggs them both on and Noelle lands a few good jabs to their solar plexus before her phone rings and distracts her long enough for Vanderwood to catch her in the jaw.

“Fuck,” she spits the mouth guard out and reaches for her phone.

“No one’s going to wait for you to take a call in the field kid,” Vanderwood grunts.

She flips them off and tucks her glove under her arm, “I have to answer it,” she grumbles accepting the call. “Jumin?”

“You need to speak with Zen.” Jumin sounds irritated.  His tone straying from neutral concerned her more than his comments.

“I will later I’m working right now.”

“On what?” he growls.  “You’ve nothing on your plate right now I saw to that.”

“You know you’re not my only job what’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong Noelle, V will be concerned if he sees Zen like this and he listens to you.”

She cringes when he mentions Jihyun and Seven raises his eyebrows. “I saw Zen earlier, and I talked to him,” she glances at the clock on the wall and frowns, “Ok it’s been a while, I might have missed the last few texts.  I’ll call him in a little while.”

“Call him when you hang up the phone Noelle.” Jumin orders her.

“I will call him when I finish, Jumin.  Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he grumbles.  “I still haven’t found my pen and Assistant Kang is being agonizingly slow delivering the slides I’ve asked for and no one is answering their phones but I am fine.”

Noelle walks a little bit away from Vanderwood and Seven while he speaks. “Are you sure, did the Old Man do somethi—”

“I’m fine, Noelle.  Thank you.”

“And he’s gone,” she frowns as the call on her phone drops.

“Are you done?” Vanderwood asks gesturing and Seven holds out Noelle’s rinsed off bite guard.

She takes it and frowns. “Do you have any time at all to make sure Jumin isn’t hiding something?  He’s more on edge then I think is really necessary maybe you were wrong and he is the target.” She pulls the glove she’d taken off back on and Seven shrugs as she shoves the rubber guard back in her mouth.

“He does seem kinda high strung but I doubt much has changed since yesterday.”

Noelle can feel the movement behind her, a skill she’s learned both from herding children on the ice and watching her sisters, and she manages to turn and barely block as Vanderwood attempts catch her with a roundhouse kick.

They manage to land the follow up jab to her kidney and Noelle grunts and takes a step backwards. “Jesus Christ.”

“No one is going to wait for you to finish what you’re doing before they attack you, Kiddo.”

“You keep fucking saying that,” Noelle growls. Their words are muffled by the rubber in their mouths.

“You need to keep your guard up even when you think your safe,” Vanderwood presses, backing her up until she’s almost leaning against one of Seven’s cars.  “If you had have been more aware of your surroundings I would never have gotten those pictures of you and the shutterbug.”

She stops, accepting the hard left that crashes into her ribs. “You wha-ngh what?”

Vanderwood smirks. “I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

Noelle blocks another flurry of punches and pushes back. “You took that picture?”

She swings wide and they dodge her next combo with a nod.  “Your Dad paid the agency pretty good for such a juvenile mission.”

She grits her teeth and then spits the mouth guard out, takes her gloves off and throws them down. “That picture ruined my life,” she frowns at Seven but he holds his hands up in surrender.

“That was before my time Six, I swear.”

She hates the tears in her eyes, hates that they’re both staring at her.  She tugs at the bracelets while Vanderwood pulls the rubber guard from their mouth, the scars on her wrists still pink against her olive skin after all these years. “He took everything away from me, and then he didn’t even let me go to her funeral.”

“I don’t feel good about it kid,” Vanderwood says, “but these people, they might know things, you can’t let it get to you, I’m trying to help her—”

Seven doesn’t see her move before he hears the thud and crack and Vanderwood drops to one knee, Noelle shaking and flexing her hand.

Vanderwood spits out a mouthful of blood, a bruise already blossoming on their jaw.

“I thought you were ready for everything,” Noelle growls and storms out of the garage.

*

He couldn’t help that nagging voice at the back of his mind, everything was starting to go wrong, and Noelle wasn’t answering his calls.  She’d been in the chat, she’d seemed okay, he couldn’t tell. Was it him or was it something else? It had seemed strange for Seven to just show up to take her home without warning but with Echo Girl at the door he hadn’t really had the time to question it.

And then this morning, Noelle had drug him all over after audition, she’d shown him so much of herself but he couldn’t stop that voice that said he wasn’t good enough.  Just a pretty face, a hard body, he was just there as eye candy, decoration, there was no substance to anything he did.

He sighs, earlier he’d been able to turn off notifications, ignore the unreality of the drama playing out on social media but now he was two hours deep in this Echo Girl thread and he almost believed her story.  It started with the photo Noelle had posted, at first he’d laughed, Echo Girl was grasping at straws. She’d called it fake, and her fans had leapt to her defense pointing out what they saw as proof that it had been ‘shopped’.

But then her story changed and he could see the frequency with which his fans tried to defend him trickle down until it was a dog pile of hate flung his way.  If anything she had said was true he would have agreed with these people. The things she suggested, the things she accused him of, they were horrible. 

Every so often she would even bring up the RFA and then rant about Jumin Han, he’d called Noelle wondering if she could explain, all Jumin would say was that she’d done some modeling work for C&R, but Noelle’s connection had been poor, everything echo-y, he’d grudgingly let her be.

There was so much going on, if she could just respond to one call, one text, he couldn’t watch her in the chatroom acting like nothing was happening.  Egging Jaehee and Seven into some kind of war against Jumin. He couldn’t watch them laughing while his life fell apart and she couldn’t take one second to settle his soul

*

“You know they’re not an agent,” Seven chuckles watching Vanderwood inspect their face in the side mirror of one of his cars.

Vanderwood shrugs, “You’re the one who said you wanted the Kid ready for anything.”

Seven chuckles. “You thought they knew already huh?”

Vanderwood groans and shoves him out of the way as he pushes past. “I’ll be back in the morning, clean up your own mess for once in your miserable life.”

He doesn’t check on his guest, they probably need some time but he considers what kind of gift he should get for them, he hasn’t seen anyone drop Vanderwood like that in a long time.  Regardless he needed to check on Zen’s situation, he was pretty sure he had something that could help but between Noelle, and the Hacker he was going to need back up.

He fields a RFA chat while she searches through his files trying to figure out exactly what he can do to help.  He wasn’t stupid, he always kept something, it was his retirement plan. The Agency, the RFA, none of it had ever been his end game, he was always planning for a way out, a way to get both of them out.

Noelle is hunched over their laptop at his dining table when he finally goes to check on them.  Fast asleep with their head in their hands, a series of slides for Jumin’s cat project are open on the screen and the pen for their tablet falls out of Noelle’s hair when he sits them up.

“Hmm,” Noelle mutters, eyes fluttering but not opening.

“Come on Six, time for bed.”  Seven glances at the couch, he hadn’t really thought any of this through, and after today, well he’d feel bad so he pulls them to standing and steadies them, “Six come on help me out here, you’re too tall to carry.”

Noelle snorts. “Fuck you.”

But he can feel their weight shift and they take a step forward into the table.

“Alright Six, let’s use our situational awareness,” he snorts, “you can sleep in my bed for the night, as a reward for fucking up Mrs. Vanderwood’s pretty face.”

“Where are you going to sleep?” He can hear concern through their sleep addled voice.

“It’s a big bed,” he jokes.

They stumble a little away from him. “Mm I have a boyfriend Seven.”

He laughs a little. “I know and he’s very pretty. I’m going to sleep on the couch, it’s ok.”

“I should sleep on the couch,” they lurch to the right, away from the couch, but they don’t know that, their eyes aren’t even opened and Seven laughs again.

“Come on Six, you’ve earned a bed, I still have work to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately this is probably the last update for this fic.
> 
> Real life an changing interests have taken away my inspiration though I do know how this would end.
> 
> Feel free to engage with me on Twitter @ChaoticJackass


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